Suburban to Superrural

SubUrban to SuperRural Editor SubUrban to SuperRural Shane O’Toole Ireland at the Venice Biennale 10th International Architecture Exhibition Contributors Published by Gandon Editions on the Boyd Cody Architects occassion of Ireland’s participation at the Bucholz | McEvoy Architects 10th International Architecture Exhibition, dePaor architects Venice Biennale. Commissioned by the Irish FKL architects Architecture Foundation and curated by Henchion+Reuter Architects Michelle Fagan, Paul Kelly and Gary Lysaght heneghan.peng.architects of FKL architects. MacGabhann Architects ODOS architects dominic stevens architect Constantin Gurdgiev Frank McDonald to Sub Super Urban Rural Commissioner Exhibition Presented by the Irish Architecture First published in September 2006 in 8 Introduction Shane O’Toole/Ciarán ÓGaora Shane O’Toole SubUrban to SuperRural Foundation under the auspices an edition of 500 by Gandon Editions, for the Irish Architecture Foundation of Culture Ireland, grant-aided by Oysterhaven, Kinsale, Co Cork, Ireland 12 SubUrban to SuperRural Michelle Fagan/Paul Kelly/Gary Lysaght/FKL architects Project co-ordination The Arts Council and sponsored by www.gandon-editions.com Donncha O Shea, FKL architects Deputy Commissioner The Devey Group, with additional © Irish Architecture Foundation, 2006 Ciarán ÓGaora Exhibition design support from the Royal Institute of 26+1 Boyd Cody Architects 18 All rights reserved. Texts and illusut- FKL architects the Architects of Ireland and Tegral rations copyright their individual Learning land Bucholz | McEvoy Architects 30 Curators and with the co-operation in Venice Film authors and owners. Design © Zero-G Michelle Fagan, Paul Kelly and of Nuova Icona. tall house dePaor architects 42 Jennifer Keegan, Director/Producer Gary Lysaght, FKL architects Ciaran Tanham, Cameraman Published on the occasion of the isbn 0-948037-37-7 Paul Murnaghan, Editor 10th International Architecture Exhibitors 54 Th e road to God-knows-where Frank McDonald Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Boyd Cody Architects Models September 10 - November 19, 2006 Bucholz | McEvoy Architects Paul Harrison, City Models dePaor architects (except ElastiCity, made by www.architecturefoundation.ie Hinterland FKL architects 60 FKL architects Andrew Ingham & Associates) Henchion+Reuter Architects Demographics Henchion+Reuter Architects 72 Information design heneghan.peng.architects Zero-G ElastiCity heneghan.peng.architects 84 MacGabhann Architects ODOS architects Lighting dominic stevens architect Paul Keogan 96 An alternative vision of Ireland Constantin Gurdgiev Engineering Contributing writers Casey O’Rourke Associates Constantin Gurdgiev Frank McDonald Construction & installation Tideaways MacGabhann Architects 106 Oikos Builders Ltd Vertical sprawl ODOS architects 118 Italian translation Fluidcity dominic stevens architect 130 Elena Carlini Public relations Annette Nugent 142 Biographies Internet support 144 Colophon/Acknowledgements archeire Irish Architecture Online Photographer Ros Kavanagh

Contents 6 7

‘Detached’ a ﬁlm by Jennifer Keegan commissioned by FKL architects as part of the SubUrban to SuperRural installation in the Padiglione Italia, Giardini di Castello, Venice. 8 97

Shane O’Toole and Ciarán ÓGaora are Commissioner and Deputy Commisioners of Ireland’s entry at the Venice Biennale 10th International Architecture Exhibition on behalf of the Irish Architecture Foundation.

‘Make no little plans; they have The population has increased 50% in less than half a no magic to stir men’s blood and probably century and will grow by more than a third again in the themselves will not be realized. Make big next 25 years. But the future is hardly discussed here, let alone planned for. plans; aim high in hope and work, remem- While continuing to celebrate the quality of bering that a noble, logical diagram once rugged individualism that makes us what we are, Irish recorded will never die, but long after we society must come to grips—now—with the fact that are gone will be a living thing, asserting all our futures are bound up with one another. A new disposition towards the land is urgently called for, one itself with ever-growing insistency. Remem- that ditches the old urban-rural divide in favour of a ber that our sons and grandsons are going vision that treats our small island, town and countryside, to do things that would stagger us. Let your as an integrated entity. How is that to be agreed, let alone watchword be order and your beacon beauty. achieved? A culture like ours, in which personal Think big.’ freedom is privileged over social cohesion, may never daniel burnham, have much use for visions of utopia but the first Venice Chicago architect (1864-1912) Biennale devoted to Cities, architecture and society is a global call to take stock as the world enters the urban era A quarter of a century ago, Ireland was a —when, for the first time in history, more people than not different place—an introverted, monocultural society live in cities—and a reminder that societies need to be and economic basket-case on the verge of a deep recession self-aware. This is precisely what we are not. We choose that would lead to widespread emigration. There were no leaders who tell us what we want to hear and enable us to faxes in 1980, no PCs, internet, mobile phones, CDs, low- carry on although we suspect the road leads to ruin. cost airlines, dart or luas. On the other hand, before What might an alternative Ireland look like our recent experiment in extreme suburbanisation, the in 2030? Architects are not soothsayers, but somebody frustration of long-distance commuting by car through needs to fill the visionary vacuum and illustrate some of miles of sprawl, with its debilitating effect on the social the characteristics of success that should mark our society lives of so many, was also unknown. a generation hence. Nine architects of the generation Today, ours is among the most globalised who will shape that Ireland have prepared a series of and successful economies in the world, with an estimated projects and scenarios, curated by FKL architects, that 167 languages in daily use. Productivity growth in the offer different glimpses of what might be. Scenarios are period 1995-2005 was nearly twice that of our nearest EU not predictions, however. They are stories built around competitor, Finland, and almost four times that of the methodically constructed plots; their importance lies EU-15. 40% of our homes are less than 15 years old and in the conversations they spark and the decisions they we are building new houses at five times the rate of Italy, inform. six times that of Britain and seven times that of Germany. Let the debate begin. 10 11 12 13

Michelle Fagan, Paul Kelly and 1 Immigration Council of Ireland: 3 Data courtesy Marc Imhoff of NASA GSFC This image of Earth’s city lights was created 4 OECD: Organisation for Economic Gary Lysaght are directors of ‘Background information and statistics on and Christopher Elvidge of NOAA NGDC. with data from the Defense Meteorological Co-operation and Development FKL architects and curators of immigration to Ireland.’ June 2005 Image by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon, Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Ireland’s entry at the Venice Biennale 2 IDA: Website of the Irish Industrial NASA GSFC. Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed 10th International Architecture Development Authority 2006 to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also Exhibition. used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth’s surface.

the sprawl surrounding our urban centers is The world’s most globalised economy driven by Ireland’s obsession with the car and an innate Ireland is now the most globalised economy in the world, desire to live on the land. A mono-functional organism, a situation that places it fiscally, if not geographically, the simplicity of sprawl has become a universal solution closer to Boston than Berlin. With an economy focused to housing throughout the island—a uniquely success- on high-end, high-tech manufacturing and services pro- ful product of our national psyche and the free market, vision, it is the largest exporter of software in the world.2 reinforced by a lack of infrastructure, co-ordinated plan- OECD figures show that the economy has enjoyed the ning, regulation and political will. The absence of any alternative development models or expectations presents the freedom to reimagine this condition at a time of immense change and evolution within Irish society. According to Eurostat, Ireland has the sixth lowest population density in the EU but this is projected to increase by 25% in the next 25 years1, creating an obligation to propose new models for development that will be environmentally, socially and culturally sustainable. Accepting our current reality of road-based SubUrban infrastructure and the widespread desire to live in low- density housing, the challenge facing Ireland is how to evolve new living conditions that are not a sub-genre of Earth’s City Lights (Detail)3 the urban but rather a hybrid of the best aspects of both to SuperRural 4 rural and urban—a super-rural condition. It will require highest growth rates in the EU for most of the last decade. both an attitude that values land for its intrinsic qualities This unprecedented economic success is drawing up and not simply as a location for housing and an inversion to 70,000 immigrants annually to the country, which is Michelle Fagan of the fundamentally negative paradigm of less-than- altering our understanding of what it means to be Irish urban to an essentially positive one of more-than-rural. and has given Ireland the fastest growing population in In curating Ireland’s participation in the Europe. Immigration is driving population increase and Venice Biennale 2006 we sought to take on this chal- accelerating the urbanisation of the country. Ireland has Paul Kelly lenge by asking our generation of Irish architects to test some catching up to do as we have a relatively low urban this paradigm shift through the formulation of specific population. We became a predominantly urbanized projects and scenarios that would illuminate a vision society only within the last generation. The economic Gary Lysaght of how the SubUrban might evolve into the SuperRural boom appears to be sustained by the building industry between now and 2030. providing housing for the growing population and on factors that are substantially outside our control—low interest rates set in Frankfurt and the presence of multi- FKL architects nationals attracted by low corporation tax rates. 14 15

5 SEI: Sustainable Energy Ireland. Morgan 7 NRA: National Roads Authority Website 10 SEI: Residential Report: ‘There was a 11 Eurostat: Statistical Office of the 14 NDP: Transport 21 16 Department of Agriculture and Food 17 SEI: Residential Report Bazillian, Fergal O’Leary, Brian Ó Gallachóir 8 SEI: Residential Report remarkable increase in dwelling completions European Commission. Social Portrait 15 CIA: World Fact Book, Ireland, website: 80% of the agricultural area is and Martin Howley: Security of Supply 9 SEI: Security of Supply Metrics over the period 1990 to 2004, from 19,139 of Europe. Geography Note devoted to grass… Beef and milk production Metrics. 2006 completions in 1990 to 76,954 completions 12 CSO: Central Statistics Office preliminary currently account for 58% of total 6 SEI: Sustainable Energy Ireland. Fergal in 2004, an increase of 300%. The figure results of Census 2006 agricultural output at producer prices… The O’Leary, Martin Howley and Brian Ó of 76,954 was also the highest over the 13 NRA: Transport policy ‘Roads... account total number of farms was 141,500 in 2000, Gallachóir: Residential Report—Energy in period and represented a 12% increase on for 96% of passengers and 93% of freight down from 223,400 in 1980. The average Ireland, 1990-2004. 2005 completions in 2003.’ According to the transport’ farm size was 31.4 hectares. Central Statistics Office, a record 86,200 dwellings were completed in 2005.

The price of this rapid economic success the family home to buy their see the first hourly intercity The Irish Dream is that Ireland has become the fifth most oil-dependent own. Whereas the incoming service between the country’s The logic of applying higher densities to urban areas is country in the EU—ninth in the world—which, given that population is heading for two largest cities—Dublin, well understood and accepted, but it has failed to solve we are barely industrialised, highlights the lack of natural town, the indigenous Irish are with a population 1.1 million, the issue of increasing demand for residential accom- resources on the island and emphasises our high per heading for the suburbs. Even and Cork, with a popula- modation in Ireland over the last 15 years. Ultimately, capita energy use.5 Small indigenous reserves of gas and though the urban population tion of 0.25 million—which, higher urban densities will only solve part of the housing peat are both likely to be spent by 2030, further increasing is technically increasing, the by increasing capacity, will problem, as long as the primary demand is for houses our dependence on imported energy. Although Ireland’s population in many urban open up points in between for and the design of viable family apartments is paid mere CO2 emissions (climate corrected) per dwelling were 97% centers is actually dropping12 further development. 40% of lip service by developers or regarded as a hopeful aspira- above the EU-15 average in 2003, most of Ireland’s pro- as suburban sprawl continues the population already lives tion by planners. In parallel with the decline in urban— duction of greenhouse gasses comes from transport.6 to soak up this ‘urban popula- within 100km of Dublin,15 as opposed to suburban—populations, the rural popu- Not such a surprise when the vast majority of goods and tion’, expanding in a self-sus- underlining its economic lation has been steadily dropping, in this case since the passengers are transported by road.7 Transport is by far taining ring with diminish- and political dominance. mid-19th century when it was decimated by famine. The our largest energy user, running well ahead of electricity ing reference or contact with The Greater Dublin Area has trend is accelerating in most areas, accompanied by a production, home heating and industry, with agriculture the centre it notionally sur- become a commuter zone decline in agricultural employment. Planning policy pre- barely registering.8 On the other hand, Ireland’s temper- rounds. The reality for many stretching halfway across the vents people without local employment or a family con- ate climate and position on the western edge of Europe, so-called city dwellers is that country, threatening to join nection from living in many areas of the country. Even so, facing the Atlantic, give us the best potential for wind, they are as car dependent as their rural neighbors. They with the sprawl generated by Cork, Galway and Limerick a significant proportion—up to 33%—of dwellings are wave and biomass exploitation in the EU.9 Yet to date are probably just as likely as a rural dweller to get in the to form one continuous super-sprawl condition on built in open countryside each year17, evidence of robust only 2.2% of our energy comes from renewables, a situa- car to go to work or the shops or to drop the children off the island. Sprawl creates dormitory accommodation, rural entrepreneurship. Encouraged by government tion which is gradually changing as the government has at school. Both are just as likely to be dependent on the deserted during the week as the daily exodus starts earlier tax incentives, many new dwellings, particularly along brought in limited tax relief for domestic use of alterna- local petrol station for their basic needs and out-of-town and ends later to avoid the chronic traffic congestion. the coast, have been built as tourist accommodation or tive energy. Rising oil prices are placing the issue of fuel shopping centers for retail therapy. Consequently, traffic Suburban sprawl has become the enemy of second homes, however, and remain vacant for most of and food security at the top of the agenda and they are congestion in and around the major urban centres is both town and country, draining the life from one and the year. now being seen as serious issues in considering the long- endemic and it can often be quicker to commute from expanding relentlessly over the other, while choking Solutions have not been forthcoming from term success of our economy. 50km away than to travel across town. both with cars tracing the daily triangle of home, school, politicians, planners or architects and the debate has work, and back again. It expands relentlessly at very low- become polarized: build nothing outside the urban centres Housing boom Roads density, squandering formerly productive agricultural or let people build what they want, where they want. Almost half of all dwellings in Ireland have been planned Ireland’s sprawling towns and cities are tied together land, stretching services and infrastructure to uneco- Neither attitude seems to hold the answer and both are and delivered by the private sector since 1990. The major- by an ever-expanding road network while the railway nomic levels and eroding the social fabric of rural life. The likely to perpetuate the current unsatisfactory situation. ity of dwellings, 82% and growing, are either owned network is under-funded and neglected.13 There is an line between urban and rural is blurring, robbing both of The decline in agricultural incomes and outright or are in the process of being purchased (mort- unprecedented road-building programme underway, their essential character. Urban-generated populations the seeming ability to turn any half-acre into a housing gaged).10 95% of the population lived in an individual which will quadruple the length of motorways and dual live in suburban enclaves stitched on to towns and vil- site has led to a rash of dormer bungalows sitting in house in 1998, compared to an EU-15 average of only carriageways by 2015. By contrast, the length of rail track lages, generating a new cash crop— sites for houses—as barely landscaped fields with elusive privacy provided 53%.11 Our new-found wealth has been driving a housing is less than it was a century ago and apart from recent manicured lawns fast replace farmed land.16 Meanwhile, by distance from neighbors. This, ultimately, is the Irish boom to accommodate not just the annual influx of light rail in Dublin and the objective to reopen 70km of the urban cores become heritage-themed retail experi- Dream. But not everyone is lucky enough to be able to foreign nationals but also affluent young Irish leaving disused track, there is no new rail on the cards.14 2006 will ences for tourists and visitors. afford such rural isolation, particularly if work is two 16 17

hours away by car. The imperative of proximity to urban 15 years ago when Group 91 were looking to address the centers produces a version of the dream in low-density, issues of the day, the creation of viable models for urban low-rise semi detached developments sprawling across living was uppermost in their minds. That argument has the ﬁelds around every town and village within striking largely been won, even if consistent implementation is distance of a city. still some way off. Within the generation that has seen Ireland become a predominantly urban society, the pres- The paradigm shift sures of urban life have prompted a desire for privacy For proposed new settlement patterns to be credible, they and freedom, expressed as a compulsion to drive cars must be socially, environmentally and culturally sustain- and live in houses with off-street parking and front and able, valuing the land for its intrinsic qualities and not back gardens. Consequently, the challenge for this gen- just as a site for the construction of housing, satisfying eration of architects has become more complex. Perhaps the desire to live on the land without degrading the visual giving people what they want can be an impetus for new amenity of the countryside at a time when tourism is of settlement patterns in Ireland? Why not suspend the growing importance to the economy. They must engage current unsatisfactory model of ‘urban/suburban/sub- with the existing patterns of the urban or rural landscape, rural/rural’ in favour of one that offers alternatives to becoming part of it and not just in it or on it. suburban sprawl by favouring a more focused pattern of ‘super-urban’ and ‘super-rural’? One in which the focus on suburban sprawl to square the circle of a widespread desire to live on the land within commuting distance of work in town is shifted to a more sustainable model that provides alternatives, that breaks the cycle of commuting and enshrines a life/work balance where there is time and space for recreation, universal access to nature and the potential for self-sufﬁciency. A future, achievable within a single generation, where there is a radical shift from Suburban to SuperRural. 18 19

Practice From Terra Incognita to Terra Firma: The contemporary rural landscape can no longer be represented by a concept of the Boyd Cody Architects whole, posited as a natural, cohesive and at times, sublime counterpoint to expanding nodes of urban conurbation. It is instead perhaps more clearly defined as a complex, fragmented, cultural and productive territory that bears Team the marks and legacy of continuous occupation. This primarily agricultural landscape is also increasingly a witness to the ruthless, disciplined and efficient surface organisation of contemporary economic and social culture in the Dermot Boyd form of suburbanisation, excavation, quarrying, harvesting, road building, drainage, intensive farming, forestry Peter Cody and related land management practices. It is by these means that we constantly re-order and re-cast the landscape James Rossa O’Hare around us into a network of surfaces and lines not unlike those operating in our cities. These applied strata are in turn re-territorialised by a mosaic of tangible and intangible boundaries, of incidental surfaces and lines operating above and below the ground, in the form of voids, topographical aberrations, geological formations, archaeology, memory. The resulting seams, edges and margins, often straddling zones of difference, are possible sites of architectural intervention, capable of establishing and re-forging a new connectivity and continuity through the intensification of interaction between landscape and settlement. the boora complex: The Boora Complex is such a margin, albeit operating at both a geographical and territorial scale. A necklace of raised bogs, a vast peatland world, it straddles the central plain of Ireland between the river Liffey and the Shannon. The organised harvesting of the bog for the production of energy by Bord na Móna, 80% of which occurs within the raised bogs of the central midlands, rests alongside the building of the hydro-electric power station at Ardnacrusha in the mid-1920s as one of the emblematic constructs that heralded the arrival of the modern project in Ireland. This landscape has, therefore, played a constant and determining role in our re-imagining of the interdependent and symbiotic relationship that exists between urban and rural, and as such, is a suitable site for interpreting a new ‘super-rural’ condition. Today it continues to provide 49% of our indigenous energy requirements, as well as the raw material for horticulture in the form of peat and peat-based products. It has established an unrivalled infrastructure network of roads, canals, industrial railways, power stations and small settlements co-existing alongside an extraordinary diverse wetland habitat and ecology. the future: The bog will, over the course of the next thirty years, come to the end of its productive life and the future potential of this expansive, open territory must be considered, as little value can now be derived from turning it to grassland. Like a great tabula rasa, this emerging post-productive terrain stretches out over some 80,000 hectares of cutaway bog. The potential exists to construct a new productive landscape, capable of supporting a self-sustaining and self-sufficient community of small settlements, co-opting and adapting extensive existing infrastructure in pursuit of the most prized commodities of our time—energy and food. An organisation that is established in an integrated and environmentally stable manner preserves and builds upon existing biodiversity while providing a new vision for super-rural living, in what could be considered a new county.

The proposed new population of 64,000 established across the ‘Boora Complex’would make it 26+1 Notes 64,000the 16th most populous county in the Republic of Ireland and the 22nd in terms of land area. 20 21

��

� � � ��

�� Bog before and during peat extraction

�� Scenario �� Condition �� 16% of the land area of Ireland is covered in both blanket The state-owned company Bord na Móna owns 7% of �� and raised bog, covering an area totalling approximately Ireland’s peatlands.�� After it has completed peat extraction 16% of the land area of Ireland is bog �� 1,340,000 hectares. The raised bogs of the central Total area of bog: 1,340,000 hectares in 2030, up to 80,000 hectares will become ‘cutaway’ �� midlands represent 80% of all commercially harvested �� or depleted bog,�� creating the opportunity for a new 11.3% blanket bog: 940,000 hectares �� bog, with 14.5 million cubic metres of milled peat being 3.7% raised bog: 306,000 hectares�� landscape dedicated�� to the production of renewable �� extracted annually for the ﬁnite production of energy 1.0% fen: 94,000 hectares energy, through the production of various forms of � � � � �� through the burning of peat as a fossil fuel. 80,000 hectares of post-production land by 2030 biomass complemented by wind power and protected food �� While Ireland imports 86% of its total energy production to offset�� imports. �� requirements, 49% of the energy that we generate �� Ireland’s�� projected population increase ourselves comes from burning peat in the thermal power �� plants located around the central midlands. In accordance �� with the Kyoto Protocol, 13.2% of Ireland’s energy must �� come from renewable sources by 2010; currently only 6% �� of energy is derived from renewables. We also maintain �� only 237 hectares of protected horticulture, importing �� a total of ¤600 million of edible horticulture and 70% �� of all organic produce annually. This is primarily due to �� our dependency on expensive energy sources, rendering �� the maintenance of extensive greenhouse structures � �� prohibitively expensive and economically unviable. �� Extraction to consumption Ireland’s renewable�� energy commitment (Kyoto Protocol) �� 22 23

��

� � � ��

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Boora Complex, existing infrastructure: 4 thermal power plants, 4 From post-production to productive landscape fuel processing plants, Royal and Grand canals, N52 and N62 national Proposition �� roads, 3 intercity rail-lines, 1,365km of industrial narrow-gauge rail. �� By 2030, the vast, open wetland territory of Ireland’s �� Boora Complex will be ready for re-use. This nascent �� landscape offers an unrivalled opportunity to re-imagine �� and reconﬁ gure our relationship with the land, without �� address to established patterns of exploitation or �� occupation. The proposal explores the possibility of a new �� symbiotic relationship for super-rural communities forged � � �� in tandem with a productive landscape. It is a relationship � �� that successfully exploits the remnants of an inherited �� industrial infrastructure with human enterprise, in an �� Availability of post-production�� bog (Bord na Móna) emerging terrain dedicated to the production of both food and energy. �� Structure ��

The entire landscape is to be divided along the lines of �� a 100-hectare grid, creating viable entities, each of which Migration to urban areas 2006 Migration to the land 2030 �� will incorporate an individually diverse pattern of land use. �� Each entity is in turn provided with a production facility, ��

or storehouse, to manage bio-culture, silvi-culture and � � Area Dublin Region: 92,100 ha Population: 1,200,000 � �� horticulture. The resultant biomass is used to generate �� Area Boora Complex: 95,000 ha Population: 0 (2006) �� energy from existing thermal power plants, displacing �� the current non renewable source of extracted milled peat. 100-hectare grid + 1-hectare storehouses Area of protected�� horticulture production

�� 24 25

Mosaic of new land uses Emerging Terrain The vast areas of cutaway bog that remain under single state ownership offer the opportunity for the planning and organisation of this new region as a whole. 2 5 Infrastructure As cutaway bogs result in a complex environment, they 8 Bio-culture Grasslands 23 naturally lend themselves to a mosaic of land-uses Wetlands determined by varying ground conditions such as peat type and depth, sub-peat mineral soil, drainage, hydrology and the geological sub-stratum. 25 Post-production Horticulture Cutaway peatland Land ready for re-use The land will be divided into diverse holdings combining 20 Forestry varying areas of wetland, forestry, windfarms, Protected horticulture will increase from 300 hectares horticulture, grassland, bio-culture and infrastructure, 5 to 3,600, an increase of 1,200% while associated non-productive conservation areas Conservation 12 Wind farms By 2010, 13.2% of Ireland’s energy needs must come will be linked by natural ecology corridors, to form a from renewable sources networked land-bank large enough to be considered a Geological substratum wilderness park. Boora Complex land use 2030 26 27

Ground ﬂoor plan

Landscape in transition 2006-2030 Storehouse and generated landscape

Storehouse & generated landscape It is proposed to build 800 storehouses across the Boora Each storehouse is formed from 20 x 1,200m2 plots set The storehouses are connected by the existing rail The resultant combination of residual heat and energy, Complex, along established lines of communication. Each over three levels, each of which can accommodate two infrastructure and into the electricity grid, allowing for an abundant natural water supply and prepared peat soils house has a footprint of 1 hectare and a related hinterland dwellings and the associated storage and production the efﬁcient transfer of energy and residual heat between and horticultural products makes for an ideal environment of 100 hectares. facilities for bio-culture, silviculture and horticulture, power plant and storehouse. for the production of food. In all 64,000 people would be creating a community of some 80 people. evenly distributed across this emerging landscape.

Section through storehouse 28 29

Ground Floor Level – Production/Storage Ground Floor Level – Production/Storage

Section through storehouse Ground Floor Level – Residential/Glass-House Second Floor Level – Residential Second Floor Level – Residential Third Floor Level – Residential

If we were to remove all our existing urban settlements, the entire predicted future population of Ireland could Area of Republic of Ireland = 6,970,200 hectares live at storehouse density in 2030 while building on only 6,970,200 / 100 = 69,702 holdings 1% of the available land area. Based on this proposal, through the creation of 69,702 holdings, Ireland could 80 people per storhouse 69,702 x 80 = 5,576,160 people sustain a population of 5.6 million. 30 31

Practice Learning land: Land parcels currently in declining agricultural use can be intensiﬁed for collective/educational uses, Bucholz | McEvoy Architects creating new places—new foci for public life and communities in the evolving condition that exists between the traditional polarities of urban and rural life. Old schoolhouses are retained in civic usage to act as catalysts for other Team collective uses, offering society an opportunity to reconnect and re-engage with the land as a rich learning tool. Retaining existing ﬁeld boundaries as pathways in a new slower means of traversing the land renders the previously Merritt Bucholz inaccessible accessible. Could the landscape become a positive structuring and generative tool supporting this Ralf Kampe emerging condition of life-long learning produced by the knowledge economy? Why suggest something fantastic when the land and the society it supports are already undergoing dramatic transformation? Karen McEvoy

75Percentage of Irish farmers who farm part-time

Percentage of the population residing Kilometres commuting daily by more 23Percentage decline in the number of Irish farms between 2002 and 2005 90within 40km of a large urban centre 50than 26% of the Irish workforce Learning

The projected number of full-time commercial farmers in Ireland in 2020. Today’s ﬁgure is 40,000 land Notes 10,000 32 33

This is a map of the middle of Ireland—Co. Offaly, Laois, Galway, Roscommon, Tipperary, and Westmeath. The dots indicate the location of primary schools built following the educational reforms of the 19th century. The grid is formed by the rule that schools be no further than 2.5 miles from any dwelling. This simple decision made education accessible to all, and reinforced a density of land occupation, with schools and houses distributed evenly across the landscape. Movement across the landscape was by foot. The pattern of occupation and density of land use did not alter signiﬁcantly until recently, when the 2006 census showed that the population of Ireland had risen to its highest level since 1861. The lives people lead here today are every bit as urban as those of city dwellers. The distinction between urban and rural is fading away. Can this educational grid be harnessed—reactivated incrementally and extended into parts of the surrounding post-agricultural landscape—once more, to become a key ingredient in Ireland’s 21st century knowledge economy? 34 35

Countryside typically found next to schools

What will become of the post-agricultural landscape? The landscape of Ireland has been re-worked, re-structured and transformed over the centuries, superimposed with layers of patterns and imprints of cultural and socio-economic formations as they have changed and evolved over time. The rural economy is no longer geographically seperate from the urban; both are part of the same space. All but 10% of the population lives within 40km of the country’s 13 largest urban centres. By 2025 there will be fewer than 10,000 full- time farmers and fewer than 30,000 part-time farmers. More and more part-farmers work in towns. But others already spend their days in the countryside working from home in the knowledge economy. Education has always been valued outside urban areas. Schools are one of the Dispersed occupation of the landscape was underpinned by the Irish New network of villages few public buildings ubiquitous in the landscape, often Persons travelling 50km to work Education ceased before 3rd level constitution and the land reforms introduced following independence in new network of villages marking the only piece of land owned by the community. Yellow low, blue high Yellow low, Blue high 1922. From the 1930s to the 1960s, land ownership of estates and large gathered around schools/education centres farms in mid-Leinster was reassigned in small parcels to migrant farmers ﬁ eld spaces Can Ireland build on this to remain competitive as a from the West, creating thousands of small privately owned landscapes, society? And what if instead of redundant agricultural typically 8-12ha in size. land being consumed for residential and commercial uses, AgriVision 2025. Rural Ireland 2025—Foresight Perspectives. NUI Maynooth/UCD/Teagasc. 2005. it were brought in to collective/public use? 36 37

Why travel? Right here is fantastic! In recent decades, depopulation of rural areas and abandonment of productive agricultural land, combined with the deterioration of socio-economic services in rural areas, has produced declining peripheral areas which are now juxtaposed with relentlessly expanding cities and towns and their associated transportation corridors. Can we imagine an Irish super-rural economy in 2030 where daily dependence on the car is almost a thing of the past? Can we imagine our society transformed—into one that trades globally on the knowledge it creates—but where people can and do continue to live in the countryside, in a landscape that increasingly offers many of the traditional attractions of a city but without the disadvantages?

Field space study 1 Field space study 2 Field space study 3 organisation around a new plan ‘around’ a ‘ﬁ eld-space’ ‘hedge-space’ space-ﬁ eld-space transport current plan —’linear’ along road connections—links at slow speed 38 39

Slowing down Our fast, car-based infrastructure has improved mobility but also increased the disconnection between home, school, work and social life. The speed at which we move across the landscape is the speed of the car; on the road, we lose contact with the land. Almost half of country dwellers no longer have direct contact with the land. Development in the landscape—whether a housing estate or a new road—erases all traces of what was there before. Everything is cut. A ‘learning landscape’ would not forget the local fi eld patterns, hedges and boundaries. Why can’t those fi eld boundaries, with their rich micro- environments contributing to rural biodiversity, be retained and developed as new pathways to traverse the Moving slowly through the landscape learning landscape? Creating a slow, safe infrastructure for walking, cycling, skating, roller-blading, scooting, skate-boarding, heelying... crossing the fi elds lightly, bringing people together informally, building community. 40 41

The learning landscape

Still crouching ’neath the sheltering hedge, Or stretched on mountain fern, The teacher and his pupils met feloniously to learn.

—John O’Hagan (1822—1850) evoking the 18th century underground Irish educational movement known as Hedge Schools 42 43

Practice tall-house: Currently 1,600,000 people live outside urban settlements in the Republic of Ireland. In 2030 there will be another 1,000,000 transient rural dwellers, mostly commuters. The countryside cannot absorb further random dePaor architects landtake. Surrogate typologies will develop. Team T. dePaor A. Hofheinz

“A wall in itself is a ﬁne thing, if the proportions are right.” J. Beuys in a memorandum dated August 7, 1964, following the press release “1964: Beuys recommends that the Berlin tall-house Notes 5Wall be heightened by 5cm (better proportions!)” (H. Stachelhaus, p. 132) 44 45

Further random landtake UGH happens on existing road and power networks on the basis of development plan road-frontage requirements, which in turn is a planning extrapolation of British Standard trafﬁc sight-line regulations. Essentially orderless, this suburbanism is described as either cluster, ribbon or one-off development of variations on a basic house type. The Department of the Environment’s National Spatial Strategy recognises UGH landuse as unsustainable.

169 m2 footprint ‘[A planning paper published by the Department (of Environment) in August 2001, in the context of preparing the National Spatial Strategy,] found urban-generated housing ‘generally unsustainable’ because of the energy it consumes, the trafﬁc it generates, and the pressure it puts on water supplies… [The paper] noted that the number of planning applications for rural housing went up between 20% and 70% in the period 1997-99, depending on the county.’ (F. McDonald / J. Nix, p. 112)

Glenelg.UGH (P. Lawlor, 2005) N6.UGH (A. Hofheinz, 2006)

1,000,000 transient rural dwellers At current rates of output, up to half of a million new one-off houses are expected on Ireland’s landscape over the next 25 years. A The vast majority of planning applications made in rural areas are urban-generated one-off houses. In 2003, they accounted “for 65% further 250,000 acres of landscape will therefore be lost to so-called Urban Generated Housing (UGH) in ‘areas outside the limits of of all housing in Mayo, 68% in Wexford, and some 70% in Galway. On average, 85% of all planning applications for one-off houses any incorporated or unincorporated city, town, village or any other designated residential or commercial area such as a subdivision, are granted…” (F. McDonald / J. Nix, p.113) a business or shopping centre or community development’ by 2030. (‘countryside’ as deﬁned by the European Environment Agency, Although the National Spatial Strategy and the county development plans acknowledge the situation, the number of new one-off http://glossary.eea. europa.eu/EEAGlossary/C/countryside). While UGH is occupied by either commuters or holiday makers, both houses has not signiﬁcantly decreased. groups of rural dwellers are transient, frequenting the landscape rather than inhabiting it.

New built bungalows and detached Rural building stock 2002** houses in rural areas* 4,000,000 population 1,280,000 units Rural: 38.8% 497,000 units 2004 19,350 Of these, one-offs: 82.4% 409,000 units 2003 21,000 2002 20,870 Projected new bungalows & detached houses in rural areas, 2006 -2030 2001 23,050 5,800,000 population** 2000 22,500 Average annual output: Say 20,000 20,000 x 25 years = 500,000

N6.UGH (A. Hofheinz, 2006) *Figures: Annual Housing Statistics Bulletin, **Figures: CSO Ireland Ó Gaora House, Co. Galway (T. dePaor, 2006) Department of Environment 46 47

Such houses are one/two story assemblies from off- the-shelf domestic pattern books. Development plans for each of the counties specify the minimum plot size to be a half acre or 2,000m2 with a minimum site road

Ath Luan Ath Luain frontage of 30 linear metres. 500,000 projected one- Galliamh N6 Gallimh off houses imply 15,000km of ribbon development. AthaAtha Cliath Cliath

N6, the national road between Dublin and Galway is 217km long. The total length of Irish coast is 3,172km. This future development is therefore 70 times the N6.UGH (A. Hofheinz, 2006) length of the N6, approximately four times that of The tower-house the periphery of the island and the equivalent of 280 hours of continuous drive-by suburbia. A statute enacted by Henry VI in 1429 declared that “it is agreed and asserted that every liege-man of our Lord the King of the said

counties who chooses to build a castle or tower sufficiently embattled or fortified within the next ten years, to wit twenty feet in It is imagined that the planning and development regulations of 2001, Schedule 2 Part 1, are amended to allow only domestic develop- length, sixteen feet in width and forty feet in height or more, that the Commons of the said counties shall pay to the said person to ment as extension upward or downward on non-urban lands. No horizontal expansion and no new build. The built footprint of all UGH build the said castle or tower ten pounds by way of subsidy.” (H.G. Leask, p. 76) is therefore ringfenced in 2006, and no further rural landtake permissible. The rural silhouette morphs as the existing UGH mutates and the urban contour focuses. However, the spatial and structural limits of the existing type become exhausted and with land value ‘Tower-houses, as defined by Leask, are square or rectangular towers (occasionally equipped with side turrets), normally with a vault increase, demolition and reconstruction on the existing footprint is soon inevitable. over at least one floor, usually the ground floor, and with the upper floors marked by better windows, fireplaces, etc; entry was usually through a door on the ground floor.’ (T. McNeill, p. 201) Surrogate typologies ‘The towers provided different levels of accommodation: the small towers had effectively only one room on each floor, with stairs and The lifestyle of UGH is not threatened, the programme well established. There are four seats in a car, one front door in an elevation latrine taking up the rest of the available space.’ (T. McNeill, p. 222) and there are four elevations. Four transient dweller groups (families) settle in one house. The density on the half acre plot is therefore quadrupled on the same footprint. ‘And may these characters remain / When all is ruin once again.’ (W.B. Yeats‘ inscription for Thoor Ballylee, Co. Galway)

The new construction is tall. The tower house is common in the Irish landscape.

– Central Statistics Ofﬁce Ireland, current statistics and projections, http://www.cso.ie/statistics/ – div. County Councils, current County Development Plans and Rural Housing Guidelines, available from the counties’ webpages, e.g. http://www.wexfordcoco.ie/ – Department of the Environment, ‘National Spatial Strategy 2002-2020’, http://www.irishspatialstrategy.ie/ 2002 – Government of Ireland, ‘Census 2002 Principal Socio-Economic Results’, Stationary Ofﬁce, Dublin 2003 – J.R. Kenyon / K. O’Conor, ‘The Medieval Castle in Ireland and Wales’, Four Courts Press, Dublin 2003 – H. G. Leask, ‘Irish Castles and Castellated Houses’, Dundalgan Press, Dundalk 1964 – F. McDonald / J. Nix, ‘Chaos at the Crossroads’, Gandon Books, Kinsale 2005 – T. McNeill, ‘Castles in Ireland’, Routledge, London 1997 – D. Sweetman, ‘The Medieval Castles of Ireland’, The Collins Press, Cork, 1999

Nenagh, Co. Tipperary (P. Lawlor, 2006) Derryhivenny, Co. Galway (D. Sweetman 1999, p. 149) Rockﬂeet, Co. Mayo (D. Sweetman 1999, p. 149) Clara, Co. Kilkenny (D. Sweetman, p. 147) Clara, Co. Kilkenny (redrawn plans / section) References 48 49

Tall-houses are erected on the footprint of earlier UGH, the half-acre plot held in common. They are predictably within a half-hour drive from urban settlements, off national routes in the sub-rural hinterlands or in positions of high scenic amenity. Their speciﬁc location is dictated by local market economics. They wish to be self-sufﬁcient in terms of services and make use of passive and active energy collection, rainwater recycling and so on. They have a communal kitchen garden, composting, garden

1 Ground floor—communal (crèche, day care etc.)/169m2 footprint 2 First floor—open porch, entrance door to dwelling unit 3 Second floor—bedroom 1 with ensuite and built-in storage shed and a lawn within a walled, gated or non- indigenous hedge enclosure. They often have a name as address. Occupants share with their neighbours a carpool and a crèche or day-care (depending on the age profile). Sometimes the tall-houses are used as guest houses where previous planning uses allow. Each of the four dwellings in one tall-house has own-door access from a driveway/carport, with covered porch, open plan kitchen/dining, a living room with fireplace, a patio with outdoor cooking facilities, three bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, built-in storage and a lift. These 4 Third floor—bedroom 2 with ensuite and built-in storage 5 Fourth floor—bedroom 3 with ensuite and built-in storage 6 Fifth floor—open-plan kitchen/dining area with guest WC domestic spaces rotate so that each dweller group enjoys each orientation and view various- ly. Each occupant is sufficiently unaware of his neighbours. A mural stairs leads down into the countryside.

7 Sixth floor—living room with fireplace 8 Seventh floor—patio with barbeque 9 Roof (scale 1:250) 50 51

4 Bedroom 3

5 Living room

1 Elevation 2 Section through poché 3 Section through domestic spaces

6 Patio 52 53

tall-house on site of Ó Gaora house

UGH location criteria (typical county development plan 2005 – 2011)

Site curtilage minimum 0.2 hectares (0.5 acres) Road frontage minimum 30 metres Building lines County Roads and Regional Roads 20 metres Entrance Entrance gates shall be recessed 4.5 metres behind the line of roadside hedgerow with side boundaries splayed at an angle of 45 degrees to the public road carriageway. Opportunities for shared use of access or combining access points should be availed of. 54 55

Frank McDonald is Environment Editor of The Irish Times, author of The Destruction of Dublin, Saving the City and The Construction of Dublin, and joint author with James Nix of Chaos at the Crossroads.

received images of Dublin, and of Ireland, in the squandered, and spectacularly so. Indeed, Ireland is on international public consciousness are of a graceful the way to becoming a city-state, with Dublin dominat- Georgian city and a country replete with wild, beautiful ing everywhere else. Its capital has become an alarming landscapes. Among architects abroad, Dublin’s recent example of the 21st century phenomenon of the ‘meta- success in pursuing an urban renewal agenda would city’, with tentacles stretching out all over the province also be known from the many awards for projects such of Leinster—via the spokes of a Dublin-centred motor- as Temple Bar. There would also be a general awareness way network— and pieces of the city popping up on the of the remarkable transformation of Ireland’s economy outskirts of towns and villages within a radius of 80 to over the past decade by the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom, which 100 kilometres. The increasingly European-style city has turned us—much to our own amazement—into the centre, with its new apartment buildings, smart shops second wealthiest country in the world (measured on a and cappuccino bars, is surrounded by a vast, sprawling per capita basis). North American-style ‘edge city’. Nothing more graphically illustrates this Census 2006 confirmed Dublin’s unre- metamorphosis than the figures for migration. During strained sprawl and, more generally, the suburbanisation the bleak years of the 1980s, 40,000 people a year—includ- of Ireland at the expense of its cities. Indeed, its popula- ing the best and brightest—were leaving the country tion statistics starkly illuminated the Government’s laissez to get jobs in Britain, continental Europe and the USA. faire approach to regional planning and its abject failure to Now, ironically, a greater number of immigrants enters ensure that growth happens in an orderly way in the right Ireland every year from other European Union member places. Thus, Dublin has even been allowed to sprawl into states (notably Poland), as well as from Asia, Africa and parts of the province of Ulster. As the Central Statistics Latin America. One recent survey found that no less than Office (CSO) noted in its own commentary, Cavan had 167 languages are in daily use in Ireland today—truly the highest growth rate of the three Ulster counties, with amazing for an island at the edge of Europe. ‘the main stimulus coming from the south of the county which is within commuting distance of Dublin’. Bursting at the seams Leinster’s share of the State’s overall popu- The State’s population stands at 4.2 million, its highest lation has continued to increase, largely fuelled by the level since 1861, with foreign nationals accounting for sprawl of Dublin; it now accounts for just over 54% of the around 10% of the total. It has been rising by a record 2% total. All of the counties in Leinster increased their pop- per year since 2002, which is the largest growth rate in the ulations between 2002 and 2006, in most cases by more The road to EU and shows no signs of tailing off; according to projec- than the national average rate of 8%. Over the past 10 tions, the population could exceed 5 million by 2020. But years, as the CSO noted, three counties—Fingal, Meath given that it has been on a steeply upward curve since the and Kildare—accounted for nearly 30% of the 609,000 God-knows-where mid-1990s, this presented the Government with a unique growth in the State’s population. Fingal grew by an opportunity to use population growth as an engine for astonishing 22% over the past four years, with the largest sensible and forward-thinking spatial planning based on increase (32%) in the Blakestown area of Blanchardstown, the principles of environmental sustainability and bal- one of the three ‘new towns’ on the immediate outskirts Frank McDonald anced regional development. That opportunity has been of Dublin. 56 57

Figure 1 Figure 2 Average housing stock per Annual new dwelling completions 1,000 of population among the per 1,000 of population among the �� 19 countries in the Euroconstruct �� 19 countries in the Euroconstruct �� network, 2005 network, 2005 �� Source CSO: Central Statistics Source CSO �� Ofﬁce Ireland ��

Between them, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow N11 national primary route. tively, while Waterford City recorded a modest increase and, with the emphasis on creating mixed use, ‘walkable registered an increase of 15% in the same period. The While this plan was being hatched, Martin of 2.6%. Meanwhile, Co Cork (+11.4%) was the fastest neighbourhoods’. But their success is critically linked to Midland Region, with an 11.5% rise, also comfortably Cullen—then Minister for the Environment—declined growing county in Munster, followed by Co Waterford the timely provision of good public transport, to give exceeded the national average rate. As the CSO noted, its to use the powers available to him under the 2000 (+9.2%) and Co Limerick (+8.3%). residents a credible alternative to cars. The viability of counties—Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath—also Planning Act to rescind it. In October 2005, after a sod- The most dreadful doughnut of all is a metro, however, is questionable in a meta-city like form part of the wider Dublin commuter belt. By contrast, turning ceremony for the N11 Gorey bypass, Cullen— Letterkenny, the largest town in Co Donegal. Its core Dublin—unless traditional suburban housing is replaced the capital’s own population grew by just 5.6%, with the now wearing his hat as Minister for Transport—hailed population plummeted by nearly 23% since 2002 while by much higher density development along the corridors large increase in Fingal being offset by smaller increases it as one of the fastest growing towns in the south-east. surrounding rural areas rercorded an aggregate increase it would serve. in Dublin City (2%), Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (1%) and ‘The demographic change which Gorey has undergone of nearly 27%, with two townlands—Ballymacool and In the meantime, Dublin and Ireland’s South Dublin (3.4%). The main reasons for this sluggish has been immense. We in Government must respond Corravaddy—turning in growth rates of 43% and 51% smaller cities are faced with problem of ‘stranded performance were attributed by the CSO to ‘the relatively to this change’, he said. In effect, he was conceding that respectively. But then, Letterkenny is remarkable for assets’, particularly schools in established suburbs with low level of new housing and an ageing population’. there had been a failure of political leadership to prevent barely having more than one coherent street even as the ageing population profiles; even writer Roddy Doyle’s As Hubert Fitzpatrick, director of the Irish the country being consumed by rampant unsustainable fields around it, up hills and down dales, were covered alma mater, Greendale Community School in the older Home Builders’ Association, said: ‘What is happening development. in concrete and tarmac. The county, once prized for its Dublin suburb of Kilbarrack, is threatened with closure. is that the failure to provide sufficient zoned and serv- spectacular scenery, has become a byword for haphazard Conversely, schools in rapidly expanding areas are burst- iced lands in Dublin ... is creating a ‘doughnut’ effect, Bowling alone development, spreading like wildfire along its rugged ing at the seams or have yet to be built, at public expense. whereby increasing numbers of Dublin-based workers Although Taoiseach Bertie Ahern once identified sus- coastline. In the seaside settlement of Laytown, Co Meath, ‘almost are being forced to move further and further from the tainable development as ‘fundamental’ to his vision of Galway did rather better than the other 100 children will have no school to go to in September’, city and inevitably rely in the main on car-based com- Ireland, the truth is neither he nor his Government has cities, although the rapid growth in its population since local Labour councillor Dominic Hannigan complained. muting’. This is the direct opposite of what was meant to done anything to make it a reality on the ground. As a 1991 moderated to 9.3% between 2002 and 2006; one of ‘Hundreds of people have to commute to work on crowded happen under the 1999 Strategic Planning Guidelines for result, the nightmare scenario painted by Robert Putnam, the reasons given was that many infill developments trains, roads and buses. This is affecting the quality of life the Greater Dublin Area (GDA), which laid down a policy in Bowling Alone, of community and even family life being in city areas consisted of apartments catering for only for hard-working families. Sewerage and water facilities of consolidating the metropolitan area, with only limited eroded by long-distance commuting, has become a grim one or two persons. And there’s the nub. Unlike most of are creaking and there are few playgrounds and leisure growth envisaged for the major towns of its hinterland. reality for many Irish people. Bertie Ahern is said to have their European counterparts, Irish families still prefer facilities for our youth’, he said. What the residents of Co That policy is now in tatters. read the book twice and even invited Putnam to speak at our version of the Garden City ideal—two-storey houses Meath are offered in terms of transportation is another Nothing more graphically illustrates the a Fianna Fáil parliamentary party ‘think-in’, but there is with front and back gardens, generally built at 10 units motorway—the M3—which would snake past the Hill of Government’s failure than the case of Gorey, in Co no evidence that this has had any impact on public policy, per acre (24 per hectare) and laid out along grass-verged Tara, ancient seat of Ireland’s high kings, and the more Wexford, 100km south of Dublin. Local councillors were particularly the need to curb sprawl. roads, with ample room for car parking; this has been distant prospect of reinstating an old railway line linking allowed to get away with rezoning vast tracts of land Even as Dublin’s fringe areas experienced the spatial norm for Ireland’s suburbia from the 1960s Navan, the county’s principal town, with Dublin. This is around this planned 17th century market town for resi- astounding rates of growth—54.6% in Ratoath, Co onwards. surely a case of ‘putting the cart before the horse’, ditch- dential development aimed at long-distance commuters. Meath, for example—older established suburbs saw ing any notion of sustainable development. As a result, Gorey’s population soared by 44% between their populations decline by between 8% and 16%, largely A prairie mentality Even more unsustainable—and uniquely 1996 and 2002 and its outskirts recorded an even larger due to the effects of the ‘empty nest’ syndrome. The flight Things began to change, at least to some extent, after the Irish—is the sprawl of one-off houses throughout the increase (53%) over the past four years. The local area plan of younger people to outer suburban areas in search of adoption of new Residential Density Guidelines in 1999. countryside. Mainly urban-generated—UGH, to use concedes that at least 40% ‘and possibly even as much as affordable housing was mirrored by the Census returns New Dublin development areas such as Adamstown, Tom de Paor’s apt acronym—these account for up to 40% 70%’ of the new residents commute to Dublin on a daily for Cork, Limerick and Waterford. The populations of Pelletstown and Stepaside are radically different in of Ireland’s record output of new housing, which is cur- basis, mostly by car, making use of the much-improved Cork City and Limerick City fell by 3.2% and 2.7% respec- form, consisting predominantly of apartment blocks rently among the highest in Europe. This extraordinary 58 59

Figure 3 �� Figure 4 �� Population 1841-2006 (26 Counties) Components of Population Change �� Source CSO � Census periods 1926-2006 �� Source CSO ��

phenomenon, which threatens to destroy the landscape Figure 5 tralisation’ programme, promulgated in 2003. Under this Population 4,234,925 Percentage change in the population and raw material of Irish tourism, is actually encouraged of electoral divisions, 2002–2006 crackpot programme, 10,300 public servants were to be Source CSO by ofﬁcial policy (the preposterously-titled Sustainable Highest since 1861 relocated from Dublin to 53 places spread over 25 coun- Rural Housing Guidelines), and panders to the interest of Increase of 317,722 since 2002 ties. Of the 920 who were to be sent to Cork, not one was farmers in selling sites at a time of agricultural decline— to go to the city; they were to be dispersed to Clonakilty, no matter what environmental groups such as An Taisce Highest increase in EU Kanturk, Macroom, Mallow, Mitchelstown and Youghal. have to say about it. 50% increase since 1961 (2.8m) What chance then that Cork City Council would be able The colonisation of the countryside for to realise its vision of developing the redundant dock- Census 2006 housing is also driven by a false perception that land in lands along the River Lee, just as Dublin is doing along Ireland is an unlimited resource. This prairie mentality up by 2%—largely as a result of the explosion in car the River Liffey? is aggravated by a cultural attachment to the idea that numbers and road trafﬁc generally since the mid-1990s. The Government’s failure to recognise every citizen, as John Waters put it, ‘had the right to nest Oil accounts for more than 57% of our overall energy Ireland’s need for a real counterweight to Dublin’s domi- where he pleased in a nest of his own designing’. The Irish consumption—much higher than the EU average. nance is its most grevious error of all. It could have Rural Dwellers Association has also argued that there is Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector embraced Dr Edward Walsh’s concept of an Atlantic nothing wrong with reverting to the dispersed settle- have risen by 144% between 1990 and 2004, making our Technology Corridor linking Galway, Limerick/Shannon

ment pattern which existed on the island in pre-Famine Kyoto target even more difficult to meet. And with the % and Cork, but it shamelessly shirked that challenge. times—ignoring the fact that very few people ventured Government investing €30 million per week in motor- Decrease Instead, everything is being left to the market to decide— 0 < 5 far outside their own parishes until the development ways and other major roads, we are being locked into a 5 < 10 whether it’s the explosive growth of new suburbs or the of the railways in the mid-19th century. Now, of course, US-style reliance on imported oil. 10 < 15 pock-marking of rural landscapes with UGH. In 10 years’ 15+ they all have cars. Figure 6 time, the country will be well and truly ruined, and we as Percentage change in the population Apocalypse now? of electoral divisions within Dublin, a people will be consumed with regret at having allowed Running on empty What is to be done? Well, some of us were naïve enough 2002–2006 Ireland to be turned into a free-fire development zone, a Source CSO Given the runaway suburbanisation we are witnessing to think that it was on the way to being sorted back in sort of mountainy version of Flanders. today—including UGH—it is no wonder that Ireland 1986 at the Dublin Crisis Conference. At the time, practi- has become one of the most car-dependent countries cally every element of public policy was pointing in the in the world. A report in 2000, Transport Investment wrong direction. Most appallingly, the inner city was and Economic Development, showed that the average car being evacuated and carved up for roads, and the pros- travels a distance of 24,400km per year—70% more than pect of it accommodating even an extra 10,000 people was France or Germany, 50% more than Britain and 30% more written off by the planners. But the conference’s agenda than the USA. With rising prosperity, the number of cars of repopulating the urban core and improving public went up by more than two-thirds from 939,022 in 1994 to transport, rather than merely roads, soon became part 1,582,833 in 2004, while the number of trucks and com- of public policy. Most hearteningly of all, the number mercial vehicles nearly doubled from 135,809 to 268,082, of inner city dwellers now stands at nearly 115,000—up as more goods are being transported by road. from 75,000 in 1991. Until the Celtic Tiger era, Ireland’s oil con- The real problem is that the Government sumption per capita was below the EU average. But for does not recognise the asset value of cities, either in its Source: Central Statistics Office every 1% increase in economic growth, oil use has gone National Spatial Strategy, published in 2002, or its ‘decen- Reproduced with the permission of the Ordinance Survey. © Irish Times Studio 60 61

Practice Hinterland: The projected investment in transport infrastructure for the country to 2030 is concentrated on the building of new roads. This priority reflects the overriding car culture that exists in Ireland and the position of the FKL architects car as the primary status symbol. Cars are an integral part of the Irish dream of owning a house on a piece of land, near family and friends, within easy reach of an urban centre. This desire has generated disparate patterns of development Team consisting of one-off houses, ribbon developments and clusters. These are now characteristic of the Irish landscape Luis Aguirre though difficult to sustain environmentally and socially, but are nevertheless sought after by a significant proportion of the population. New, improved roads will mean faster travel times for commuters and will enable people to settle Michael Bannon further from their places of work. This will increase the pressure on agricultural land bordering the conurbations Jeff Bolhuis to provide housing and lead to further congestion on the commuter routes. the value of land Irish people have historically valued the land above all, which has evolved into an ownership culture that has no responsibility to tend Deirdre Brophy the land, as it has become merely a commodity. The value of the land has changed. The productive landscape has been Dara Burke exchanged for a one-time only cash crop of houses. Farmers reduce their production and the homeowners settle on small housing plots that will release carbon emissions and waste into the environment. 8.2 tonnes of CO2 are emitted Miriam Delaney annually per dwelling in Ireland—97% higher than the EU average—which cannot be sustained. re-valuing the Michelle Fagan land Our society’s future lies in realising the potential of the resources available to us. A re-valuation of the land will lead to a new attitude of sustainable development and a further evolution of the productive landscape, which will Andrew Griffin support an increased population in the hinterland of the proposed road network. Paul Kelly Laurence Lord Gary Lysaght Donncha O Shea Tara Quinn 25,000 The world’s highest average distance in kilometres travelled each year per car—compared to 20,000km by Danish drivers and 18,500km by US drivers 40.1Percentage of Ireland’s population living in rural areas

Percentage of Ireland’s energy requirement currently imported, 87with only 2.2% generated from renewable sources domestically

Hinterland Notes 92Irish households living in single-family houses, compared with the EU average of 59% Kilometres1250 of new motorway and dual carriageway planned between 2000 and 2015 62 63

Population (1,000s) Over 1,000 100 - 125 75 - 100 50 - 75 25 - 50 Under 25

Density 2001– persons per square km Over 100 50 - 100 25 - 50 10 - 25 Under 10

Motorway/Dual Carriageway Primary/Secondary Road Commuter Zones

�� Population & Density 2001 Current road network ��

Cash crop housing People want to drive cars, work in town and live in the countryside

4 %Urban %Rural %Oil %Other Urban IRL 60 40 IRL 53 47 22 Other

EU 73 27 EU 41 59 8,175,124 Current Irish population 4,200,000 Currently 40.1% rural dwellers 1,722,000 Population distribution Primary energy consumption 64 Max total population by 2030 5,800,000 Agriculture

5,800,000 � � Projected 30% rural dwellers by�� 2030 1,740,000 Rural population will continue to stagnate 4,450,000 9 �� %Rail %Road %Apartment %House 4,200,000 Forestry 4 96 8 92 ��

IRL IRL 2,800,000 �� EU 61 39 EU 41 59 1841 2006 1906 1961 2030 Mode of travel Dwelling type Population Land use 2006

��

�� 64 65

Ash, birch and willow trees absorb pollutants and block road noise

Biofuel from each plot and from road margins is processed into biodiesel in regional plants

Biofuel such as rape seed will provide an income stream, offsetting tolls and improving trafﬁ c ﬂ ow Ash, willow, birch

Rapeseed Transfer to buses will reduce overall trafﬁ c volume, noise and pollution Cycle lane

Dedicated bus lane 5 MINUTES TO HUB P

PLOT HUB ROAD

Proposed motorway—productive network Subverting the road network to public transport makes rural living viable

A change of emphasis for the individual road user from car on the margins to provide the raw material for biofuel, to bus—by translating one lane of every dual carriageway with willow and birch trees absorbing chemical and noise to a dedicated bus lane—will serve to increase the capacity pollution. The visual amenity of the road is enhanced by of the road network. A coach can carry 54 passengers this opportunistic planting, and reduced trafﬁ c levels and a doubledecker bus carries 77 but both only take up make living in proximity to the road a viable option.

the equivalent road space of 2.5 cars carrying an average Kilometres per car per year (2006) 25,000 of 1.5 passengers, potentially removing up to 51 cars Hectares required for biofuel per car 1.5 from the road. Park and ride facilities will be provided at Cars on the road (2006) 1,400,000 Hectares required to produce biofuel just for cars 2,100,000 intervals along the motorway, facilitating the transfer from car to bus close to home and thereby attracting � Percentage of agricultural amenities that will serve local communities. The local land required to provide car culture, integrated with a bus system, connects the biofuel for current car use increased rural population to urban centres. The territory 51 cars 1 bus occupied by the roadway is made productive to cultivate biofuel for transport. Rapeseed or Miscanthus is planted �� 66 67

Solar energy is converted Wind and solar into electricity erratic sources are 0.375ha of coppiced willow used to pump water provides heat and hot water to a high level tank for an efﬁ cient home which can be used to generate electricity when required 0.125ha of reed beds processes the waste produced by a family

0.375ha provides the basic fruit and vegetables required by a family

A house plot of 0.25ha is equivalent to the current site size for one house

0.375ha of biocrops are The biodiesel is sufﬁ cient to Wind energy is harvested and processed to power a car for 5,000km and converted into manufacture sufﬁ cient biodiesel 1:50 share of a bus for 20,000km electricity

Self-sustaining housing plot Reconnecting the housing plot to the productive potential of the land

22% of all energy consumed in Ireland is lost in This development pattern encourages the individual transmission. Generation of energy at point of use to be self-sufﬁ cient, giving the freedom to operate eliminates the need to install costly networks in separately or with the community. The sustainable plot low-density rural situations. The minimum size for a allows for continuing involvement by farmers: they sell sustainable residential plot is 1.5 hectares, which will the sustainable plots but can still maintain their lifestyle

support an integrated system balancing energy production as service providers—through the ongoing cultivation of Hectares of biofuel for 5,000 km by car to heat houses and produce basic food needs and fuel for biocrops—to the new rural dwellers. and share of 20,000 km by bus 0.375 cars, while dealing with waste produced by occupants in Proposed hectares for a self-sufﬁ cient dwelling plot 1.5 Average people per dwelling by 2030 2.5 an environmentally beneﬁ cial way. => People per km2 166 20 Houses 60ha Farm land 20 Houses 30ha combined National average population density per km2 (2004) 55

Willow—grown in 4-year cycles Willow provides privacy Garden Fruit & Vegetables Reed bed

Harvesting route Rape seed Rapeseed harvested The current suburban development of 20 houses to the hectare requires from road 60 hectares of farm land to balance its ecological footprint. If we combine housing and farming it requires only 30 hectares of land Each plot is the size of two soccer pitches Plot sub-division 68 69

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Motorway hinterland provides a sustai nable rural settlement pattern

The plots will be experienced as a matrix of vegetation It will take a maximum of 5 minutes by car, 20 minutes Town and occupation, an evolution of the currently pleasing by bicycle or 40 minutes by foot to the nearest Park and farmland pattern. Interspersed feral land, overlaid with Ride, which will provide a range of social and sporting a network of paths, will provide public access to the facilities, attracting through its accessibility a population countryside and support a wide diversity of wildlife and approaching 4,500. Hub habitats. 5 minutes drive from motorway 3.3km radius The settlement accepts existing ﬁ eld patterns, @ 166 people per km2 subdividing them into 1.5-hectare plots arranged in strips @ proposed 80% land use for plots energy Cycle path => People per km of motorway 700 so that crops can be harvested with relative ease, in a Projected length of dual-carriageway by 2015 1,550km Walking path grouped or individual way, creating locally based rural Settlement employment. The positioning of individual dwellings waste food allows for desired privacy but proximity to a hub affords Town opportunity for social interaction.

Self-contained system within each site The Park and Ride will evolve into a hub attracting services to support the local rural population 70 71

Proposed motorway hinterland—2030

Connecting a viable rural population to a network of dense urban centres

In a country with a history of husbandry and land management, the visual amenity of the countryside lies in its functionality and through the contrast between managed farmland and wild edges. The Hinterland pattern will reconnect housing capacity with the productive

potential of the land and thereby create a rich pastoral Maximum total population in 2030 5,800,000 environment where the rural population is integrated Proposed rural population @ 40.1% 2,378,000 visually and environmentally. A change in attitude to the Rural population increase 656,000 @ 700 people per km of motorway construction of houses to respect climate, orientation Length of road required 937km and locally produced materials will inform their nature and aesthetic, making them innately part of the landscape—a new vernacular. By 2030, the rural hinterland of the road References Credits Teagasc CSO, SEI Photography Services image p65 Dr. David Styles network will be inhabited in a sustainable, coherent and Eurostat, Google image p64/66 School of Natural Sciences NRA Trinity College Dublin productive manner and will have reversed the relative decline of the countryside. FKL architects wishes to extend its gratitude to Marie Kelly for invaluable help with editing the curators’ essay, SubUrban to SuperRural 72 73

Demographics: Ireland has the highest car use in Europe. Ireland has the lowest train use in Europe. Population Practice dispersal in rural areas does not support an alternative. Henchion+Reuter Architects Team Olaf Behrens Michael Robert Conroy Martin Henchion Trine Kobbelvedt Mary O’Neill Werner Weidenberg

1.6Million projected population growth in the 25 years to 2030 60Current density of population per square kilometre Demo- graphics Notes 70,300Land area of Ireland in square kilometres 74 75

Distribution of settlements with over 5,000 inhabitants in 2001 Irish railway system 1923 Irish railway system 2006

Dublin has been forecast soon to occupy a surface area equivalent to Los Angeles, but with less than �� a quarter of its population. The city’s commuter belt extends from Dundalk in the north to Gorey �� in the south and as far inland as Athlone. The far circle of this belt has witnessed the greatest �� population increase in the last 10 years. �� The Republic of Ireland is projected to grow �� by 1.6 million people in the period 2005-2030. �� This is a 38% increase on the current population. �� While this may represent a substantial change, �� it is signiﬁ cantly less dramatic than the fall in the �� total island’s population from 8.1 million people �� to 6.5 million people in the period 1843-1850 (or �� the subsequent population drop to 4.2 million by �� 1926). �� — �� By European standards, Ireland is not densely �� populated at 60 people per km2. In fact, the lack of �� substantial population density may be the biggest �� challenge to development and growth, as the ��

�� critical mass required to support an integrated, �� efﬁ cient infrastructure system is still lacking. �� Ireland’s lack of viable alternative transport and accommodation models increases the pressure for new housing on farm land, to a �� degree unimaginable in societies having advanced �� infrastructure networks and higher residential �� densities. ��

�� Sources � � � �� Central Statistics Ofﬁ ce Ireland. �� RIAI Representing Irish Architecture, 18 Nov 2004 �� (The President of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, Tony Reddy) www.irelandstory.com Population change, Ireland North and South Average kilometres travelled per car per annum Passenger kilometres travelled by rail per head of population in 2004 Chaos at the Cross Roads by Frank McDonald + James Nix www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/geography/settlement.html ��

www.atoc-comms.org/Document/c479106.doc ��

��

� �� 76 77

�� A traditional country town The town begins to grow �� The road network is overwhelmed �� The town is by-passed �� Current plans to decentralise government departments The ‘points’ chosen refer invariably to medieval towns �� in a pattern of node points evenly scattered across the centres already clogged with trafﬁ c, surrounded by �� country is not supported by an infrastructure system and low-rise development serviced by by-pass roads and �� will cause further chaos in towns not structured to accept roundabouts. No successful model exists for the �� further growth. satisfactory enlargement and development of these �� The National Spatial Strategy, inconsistent in parts towns, the growth of which can in certain instances �� Car and rail access with the decentralisation plan, further proposes an even equate to a 100%increase in size. �� Car access only distribution of gateways and hubs across the country. Most country towns have limited capacity to accept �� Government Decentralisation Plan Both plans assume a ‘point’ system, rather than a network new infrastructure and population growth. The current �� Proposed relocation of 10,300 public servants, of interconnecting functions or zones of activity. model of suburban housing and ring roads at the edge of �� currently mostly in Dublin, to 53 locations �� town militates against high-quality development. �� 78 79

�� Travelling between Dublin �� and Sligo takes 3h 05min �� 48mins by Irish Rail—a distance of ��

Point-city zone Tri-city zone Mid corridor zone Eastern corridor zone 209km. �� (area 800 sq km) (area 1,600 sq km) (area 13,000 sq km) (area 17,000 sq km)

�� A French TGV train would �� be able to travel the same �� Between 1993 and 2000 the number of new cars bought �� annually in Ireland increased by 370%. distance in 48 minutes. Transport 21, the government’s ten-year infrastructure �� programme (2006—2015), will invest much more in roads Penta Zone (area 27,000 sq km) than railway. The ratio is almost fi ve to one. Ten average cars use the same amount of fuel This area could fi ll to a den- as a Danish IC3 train with 133 seats. sity of 150 people per square�� kilometre —which is more Ireland has 3,312km of railways and 95,736km of roads. �� than enough�� to sustain a de- �� veloped railway system with Clearly, a thin and even spread of some of the projected population increase across rural areas will add further frequent�� train departures.�� low-rise development and commit the country to decades of car-dependent living. While many will continue to �� gravitate to the main urban centres, Ireland has the land �� resources to offer an alternative to city living. �� Can a form of super-rural settlement pattern be formulated that offers an alternative lifestyle to �� city living but is organised to support a centralised infrastructure system? For our investigation of Rural Sources �� manipulations of density, we have considered where SuperRural (2030) http://www.noah.dk/trafi k this new population of 1.6 million people could be www.atoc-comms.org/Document/c479106.doc accommodated. www.raileurope.co.uk, www.viamichelin.com, www.irishrail.ie Distances are measured in travel time 80 81

SuperRural 2030: A network of new towns overlaid on Ireland’s existing infrastructure corridors and linked to the major urban centres by a high-speed train system.

SuperRural town 28 minutes from Limerick

Stadium 32 minutes from Dublin SuperRural town 19 minutes from Cork

New towns located around dedicated infrastructure hubs 82 83

40% land occupied by infrastructure 10% land occupied by housing 30% land occupied by housing 80% landscape 15- 30 housing units per hectare 100- 150 housing units per hectare

40% land occupied by infrastructure 80% landscape 30% land occupied by housing 10% land occupied by housing 15-30 housing units per hectare 100-150 housing units per hectare

SuperRural Infrastructure hub Suburban development model, 2006 SuperRural development model, 2030

84 85

Practice The missing link: Ireland is the largest country in the EU that is not physically connected to the European Mainland. heneghan.peng.architects With our trade-dependent economy, air travel has become a necessity. There will be 21,000,000 passenger journeys from Dublin airport this year, equivalent to each person in the country making ﬁve journeys. Almost half of all the Team passenger journeys from Dublin airport are to the UK. The Dublin—London air route is the busiest in Europe and the Róisín Heneghan second busiest in the world. Based on the need to get to London, we propose a bridge connecting Ireland to the rest of Europe. The distance from Dublin to London along this land route would be 570km (130 km Dublin to Rosslare, 80 km Shih-Fu Peng Rosslare to Fishguard, and 360 km Fishguard to London). Along this would run a high speed train connecting Dublin to Emer O’Daly London directly in 2 hours, and Dublin to Paris in less than 5 hours. attracting some order: This proposal strives to Kathryn Stutts develop a magnet—the easy link to the UK and the continent—so great that the city will recreate itself around this link, bringing housing development and infrastructure together. Dublin would become de-centralised, growing linearly along the east coast of Ireland. Every part would be close to both rural landscape and the rail link, combining suburban qualities (close to the countryside) with urban qualities (close to major infrastructure). The result is a super-rural condition. If every part of a city is within easy reach of the major infrastructural route, then every part is close to the centre; the suburban as we know it no longer exists. a middle ground between rural and urban—the irish dream: The attraction of a suburban lifestyle is derived from the desire to live in close proximity to the countryside (or at least to a small part of it in the form of a front and back garden), coupled with the necessity of travelling and working in the city. The development and enlargement of Dublin has been largely directed by these desires with the surrounding sprawl extending ever outward from the centre, consuming the countryside with low density housing which cannot support a workable public transport system. Ultimately, the current model of suburban development is unsustainable, as the rural and the urban are being driven further and further apart. By creating the link to the UK, Ireland would be putting in place a catalyst for the reconﬁguration of the urban sprawl that currently threatens the Irish countryside. A Dublin-London linear urban corridor would be created facilitating those who wish to have access to London’s networks but would rather live and work elsewhere. The magnet of the bridge and the resulting formation of a stretched city, an ElastiCity, will provide a new pattern for guiding Ireland’s growth.

80 Number of ﬂights per The distance in kilometers from Dublin to London along this land route week day from Dublin 570 250High speed trains travel at over 250kph to London Ireland is the largest EU country that is not physically connected to the European mainland

ElastiCity Notes 21,000,000Projected number of passenger journeys from Dublin airport in 2006, equivalent to each person in the country making ﬁve journeys. www.dublinairport.com 86 87

DublinDublin Dublin Dublin

London London The missing London London link

Paris Paris Paris Paris

Ireland is an island... The Dublin—London route is the second busiest in the world... Based on the need to get to London, we propose a bridge be built, connecting Ireland to the rest of Europe...

Dublin—London—Paris The physical distance between places becomes less important as travel times are considerably reduced. Currently the time it takes to travel from London to Paris by the Eurostar is 2h 35 mins. Travelling by train has begun to replace air travel due to faster trains, shorter travel times and reduced check-in, security and boarding formalities. The Eurostar has already captured 71% of the London-Paris market from the airlines. Within Europe, high speed trains are fast becoming the most efﬁcient and sustainable mode of travel.

All times are local. CET is one hour ahead of GMT 88 89

Building the bridge Clearly this proposal is a signifi cant engineering However, consider the costs of our current condition. In undertaking. The distance from Rosslare to Fishguard 2005 there were 8.25 million passenger journeys through is 80km and the Irish Sea is up to 100 metres in depth. Dublin Airport to the UK and 11 million from all the Irish As a high speed train requires stability the bridge needs airports to the UK; traffi c in 2006 is up 15%. All involve foundations and cannot fl oat. By applying construction air journeys of less than 1000km, distances at which air techniques developed by the oil industry for oil platforms, travel is highly fuel ineffi cient. It has been estimated that the bridge can be built and shipping channels maintained, by 2040 aviation will consume the entire EU budget for but it is an expensive undertaking. carbon emissions. We may need to connect, but whether we will be able to do so by air is subject to question. Different levels of occupation of the bridge 90 91

Global-scale urban planning The process of globalisation has transformed Europe. This boost to the Irish economy was initiated by Different societies, cultures and economies are becoming systematically creating new connections and links within increasingly integrated and interdependent. New the larger context of the global market. By creating the Dublin technologies allow the rapid exchange of goods and missing link to the UK, Ireland would not only become people from city to city, and the almost instantaneous physically connected to the EU, but would also be putting transfer of information and ideas. What this means is in place a catalyst for the reconﬁguration of its cities. that urban planning should not be restricted to national The magnet of the bridge and the formation of a stretched boundaries—it should be considered at a global scale. city, an ElastiCity, would result in Dublin and London D u b l i n We must start to think about our cities within a much becoming increasingly integrated. New development larger context than ever before. would evolve alongside the infrastructure in the form Over the past decade Ireland has witnessed an of a Dublin-London Corridor. astonishing economic growth, largely as a result of the contribution of overseas companies which have found Ireland to be a highly competitive location from which to London L o n d o n serve international markets. This means that Ireland has a high dependence on international trade, making it one of the most open economies in Europe. Dublin and London Dublin – London 92 93

Dublin 2005 Dublin 2015 Dublin 2025 Dublin 2030

From radial to linear city—the rearrangement of nodes

Greater distance between city Shorter distance between and countryside city and countryside Directed sprawl: The beneﬁts of elasticity Dublin has developed beyond its infrastructural viable, as they are able to serve the entire city. This new capabilities. The multi-directional, unguided sprawl model is not based on a traditional centralised European of Irish housing cannot be serviced by a functional city that relies on a dense urban core. Rather, it is a city transportation system, as development has spread too that has unfurled, so that the edge and the centre are Node widely and at too low a density. This link would redirect adjacent—an ElastiCity. City centre Suburbs Dublin’s development to stretch linearly along the Infrastructure east coast of Ireland. It would become a multi-centred Countryside metropolis composed of a series of nodes, evolving alongside the primary infrastructural link. Because the nodes are gathered along a single line rather than scattered across an area as they are now, high-speed trains running along the east coast become economically

Typical City ElastiCity 94 95 96 97

Dr Constantin Gurdgiev is an Economist with Trinity College, Dublin and University College Dublin, and Editor of Business & Finance.

Introduction towns to leave their lasting mark on Earth. Even recently 1. To a casual visitor departing Dublin City completed buildings prefer to cut into elevated sites centre, as the rows of Georgian and Victorian homes give instead of using the contours of the naturally diverse way to the monotony of suburbia, the imagery of Green and rich Irish terrain to their positioning advantage. Ireland slowly recedes into the memory of the tourist In this space brochures. Dominated by the ageing stock of standard- One drowns without ized housing, the typically provincial 1960s Northern So much as a trace, English architecture is reinterpreted in bricked and Or a record of a loss… pebble-dashed rows of homes haphazardly snaking It is hard to find a less human attitude to landscape across the landscape. The entire architectural language than that presented by the extra-urban Ireland. In con- of Irish suburbia can be compressed to just two expres- stantly ‘blending’ land to suit the needs of agricultural sions—a dormer bungalow and a pitch-roofed box. The production and suburban expansion, Irish countryside social order that abhors any attempt at transgression adjoining the larger cities has been reduced to an unim- makes certain that nothing passing the local planner’s aginative utilitarian spread of featureless ground. Only desk disturbs its aesthetic tedium. older estates retain mature trees, fruit orchards and well- On the urban margins, strings of relatively maintained streams or ponds. concentrated developments radiate from the M50 ring Stretching beyond the extra-urban belt road—beads of towns/villages with occasional awk- lies the world of abandoned heaps of concrete rubble wardly protruding blocks of apartments threaded on and rusting skips of smaller roads—the rural space of the thin needles of the main motorways. Staring into one-off housing. Here a juxtaposing of traditional and the confines of a solitary public square, an average modern is reflected in the physical positioning of the Irish town usually avoids waterways and other natural buildings. With the exception of historical estates, the An alternative vision of features as focal points of orientation. A local pub older dwellings and the layout of the established coun- forming the main point of attraction is an apt reflection tryside conform to the geophysical features of the land- of a country psyche still inclined to measure the cost of scape. living in pints. Premium aesthetic goods like the view Sprinkles of bungalows, flat to the ground. Fences Ireland in contrast with and identifying features of the landscape fail to inform Built to contain the guts of wisteria turning. the architectural patterns. New plain-faced four or five- One’s speech here grows slower, coarser, wetter, hollow. storied buildings—the symbols of high-rise modernity Chances are, the thoughts will follow… the current spatial in a townfolk view—often compete for light and air with Single-road towns, with gas stations’ convenience stores decaying factory walls or the corrugated rust of adjoin- increasingly serving as focal points of local economic ing farm yards. Walkways lack breadth and trees. Street activity, are rarely distinguished by anything resembling corners rarely contain an element of surprise, such a unique character. Just as with the larger extra-urban development mantra as a sudden square or a remnant of past public space. towns, the Irish countryside is based on the 19th century Sculpture and architectural detailing are either non- view of land as a productive unit, unimportant from the extant or mimic past decades, as if past-their-prime point of view of its aesthetic value. Constantin Gurdgiev artists have descended en masse on Irish provincial 98 99

In contrast, buildings completed since the mid-1990s trails are severely restricted by adjoining private lands. This essay outlines the state of Irish spatial policies, The NSS (2001) explicitly stated that ‘One of represent a departure from their surroundings. Often The only exceptions to this rule can be stressing the apparent failure of national development the objectives of the NSS should be to shift the current imposing in size and ostentatiously decorated, they found on the grounds of larger estates, often converted strategies to reverse the organic urbanization brought gravitational forces in Ireland westwards. If centres too achieve greater visibility and prominence in the land- into golf courses with auxiliary functions of providing about by the accelerated economic development of the close to Cork/Dublin are selected as gateways/hubs, they scape. This effect is only exaggerated by the pervasive access to private fishing and hiking. Over the years, in last 15 years. will simply become commuter towns.’ The NDP 2000- lack of vegetation around the new builds, the ubiquitous these estates, concentrated ownership of land allowed We conclude by proposing an alternative 2006 envisioned ‘the promotion of a small number of plaques with ostentatious names of the dwellings, often for more heterogeneous development and land manage- vision of Ireland in which urban and suburban areas are additional regional gateways (urban growth centres)… executed in a tombstone fashion, and imposing stone ment, including the use of land for entertainment and encouraged to further increase population density. If [and] positive discrimination in favour of regions lagging walls. In an attempt to stamp a mark on their surround- aesthetic enjoyment. Ireland were to pursue this organic growth, the process behind in relation to support for new enterprise and the ings, the newer structures appear garish and loud. The of separation of rural areas from urban zones will con- productive sector in general.’ This approach hardly made majority of the decorative elements that are supposed to Thus, without leaving the car, a traveler is immediately tinue. The result will be a transformation of Ireland into a sense in reality: inform the architectural vocabulary arrive from a limited introduced to the main feature of Ireland—the lack high-growth and high-density island with five core loca- — Since the beginning of the 1990s, the majority of number of sources—the new Irish countryside resem- of access to its natural and geophysical store of riches. tions of economic and social activity which will support economic development and jobs creation took place bles a badly arranged quilt of DIY-styled façades. Lines Irish culture does not treat land as a resource capable of a set of large recreational zones similar to the state and within the five urban areas of Dublin, Cork, Waterford, of faux balconies with galvanized railings are punctu- supporting diversified services or as an aesthetic good, federal parks in the US. This process will coincide with Limerick and Galway. ated by Doric columns and neoclassical porticoes, and preferring to use it as a utilitarian input into basic agro- continued reduction in the economic diversification — Foreign direct investment previously located in rural a national obsession with Velux replaces the ubiquitous industrial production. This attitude over the years has of peripheral rural locations to the point of rural areas areas started to withdraw from the Republic or relo- window lace of the past. informed governments’ approach to development. In emerging as publicly accessible forestry and parklands cate higher value-added processes to urban locations. Exiting the rural zones, one is transported a succession of various development plans, the State with developed recreational infrastructure. — The cost basis for high value-added jobs creation is into the landscape of private agriculture—the ultra-rural treated rural areas as simultaneously unique preserves of less favourable in rural locations due to shortages of space. Here, open vistas are rarely public and access to the undefined ‘Irish heritage’, and regional underperformers Tunnel vision in development planning infrastructure, amenities, knowledge networks and land, with its often unparalleled, aesthetic attributes— in need of accelerated development. 2. In Ireland, the organic evolutionary process the lower ability of these areas to attract and absorb views, geophysical features and locations – is severely This is surprising given the prominence of of continued separation of rural periphery from the skilled domestic and foreign labour. restricted. With the exception of a handful of scenic the Irish tourism industry in rural employment and the urban centres is being undermined by a host of state and — Enhancement of ‘gateway’ developments within urban routes, the majority of rural roads are submerged below mythology of the island as a land rich in cultural heritage local initiatives. areas is more likely to result in the growth of commu- the line of sight by hedges and walls. Roadways com- intertwined with nature. In reality, while Ireland’s eco- According to the National Spatial Strategy nities adjoining urban high-density locations, induc- monly follow artificial farm boundaries, passing through nomic success translated into revitalizing the country’s (NSS, 2001), Irish rural areas experienced a strong decline ing reverse commute patterns and local employment. geophysical locations selected for the lowest quality urban make up, the tight grip of agriculture and local in population even in the boom years of the mid 1990s. — Despite stating that the objectives of the spatial devel- of agricultural land. Narrow and blank-walled bridges politics on Ireland’s rural areas has led to a continued However, there was little concerted effort to develop opment policy include preservation of natural habi- obscure rivers and valleys. Wading through salmon and decline in rural tourism. Over the last few years, virtually declining areas with a focus on recreation, natural habitat tats and the environment, the NSS (2001) concluded trout streams—the sacrosanct subjects of Fáilte Ireland every international tourist survey of Ireland found that preservation and restoration. Instead, the regional devel- that ‘There must be a strategic expansion of rural vil- brochures—one routinely encounters farm run-offs and our countryside is lacking distinctive features worth opment plans, the NSS and the National Development lages and towns; people should be encouraged to live mudslides along the shore, abandoned barbwire fences visiting and offers little in terms of high-quality recrea- Plan (NDP) insisted on the feasibility of mixed develop- in rural areas.’ hanging across the water, construction debris, and live- tional amenities. ment, with industry and auxiliary services coinciding stock and machinery tracks running through the shallow with the recreational use of land and high value-added Thus, the NSS and the NDP 2000-2006 set out to achieve areas. The precious few public-access fisheries and hiking tourism. conflicting objectives. The expansion of isolated towns 100 101

Figure 1 �� Urban population projections �� Urban population refers to the Greater Dublin, �� * Urban-2006 scenario was computed Cork (SW), Waterford (SE), Limerick and Galway �� using Census 2006 ﬁgures. (W) areas computed under the current demo- �� graphic trend scenario. Source: Blackwell (2001) �� **Urban scenario corresponds to NDP �� 2006-2013 forecasts. ��

was seen as a response to suburban sprawl, while agri- Indeed the NDP (2006.3) claims that ‘it will be necessary Fleeing rural Ireland Overall there is no evidence that the exist- culture and population maintenance in the rural areas to secure agriculture …by maintaining the maximum 3. Since the early 1990s, Ireland has experi- ent rural population can be sustained, let alone enhanced was seen as a conservation objective. Instead of focusing possible number of family farms’. At the same time, the enced both a decline of rural and ultra-rural commu- in the areas not associated with larger urban locations. on the rural locations’ comparative advantage over larger NDP sets out to ‘diversify rural employment options and nities and a continued strengthening of urban centres, ‘Areas experiencing population growth… have a strong urban centres, the Government simply interpreted rural stabilise population through: resource-based development as illustrated in Figure 1. The former process was most urban structure within or associated with them. This Ireland as a collection of semi-urban areas. Under spe- in sectors such as forestry, marine and natural resources, notable in the sparsely populated and remote areas of the has helped them to attain a critical mass in terms of pop- cific allocations programmes, the NDP 2000-2006 con- enterprise and local services; tourism development Border counties—Donegal, the Western Midlands and ulation, which supports investment in necessary infra- tained little in terms of differentiated measures aimed through quality market-responsive products, enhanced the West. The latter is exemplified by the rapid growth structure, attracts or generates employment and sus- at distinct rural development, focusing the majority of access and co-ordinated promotion of a tourism product; of Dublin and Cork. tains investment and development… in the wider rural funds on building up urban-style infrastructure and protecting landscape, water resources and habitats.’ All of In 1996, the Greater Dublin Area was home hinterland. Movement of people to the areas where the economic development programmes in rural areas. Only the latter objectives have been continuously undermined to approximately 38.8% of the Irish population, rising investment and jobs are generated, or can be drawn to, under the measures related to the Common Agricultural by agricultural development in the Republic (see RENSS, to 41.79% by 2002. Census 2006 results show that today as well as natural population increase, reinforces these Policy (CAP) did the NDP 2000-2006 attempt to deliver 2000 and the ongoing debate about access to rural land). Greater Dublin accounts for 42.63% of Ireland’s popula- areas’ population base and fuels further population some tailored programmes, including limited support These strategies show that the Government tion. Overall, Ireland’s five main urban areas were home growth’ (NDP, 2006.2). Figure 3 illustrates the resulting under the Rural Environment Protection Scheme and is committed to artificially inflate population in rural to 59.1% of population in 1996, rising to 60% in 2000. spatial distribution of areas, experiencing growth and for forestry. areas and to continue pushing for urban-style economic Adjusting for the Census 2006 preliminary results, the decline. Despite the abject failure to deliver on development alongside support for agricultural and share of Ireland’s population residing in the main urban These processes are unlikely to be reversed the promised correction of the rural-urban gap, the urbanised development programmes, with little differ- areas will increase from 63% today to 72% by 2030. by central planning efforts without a significant displace- same policy errors are replicated in NDP 2007-2013. entiation between urban and recreational tourism (see According to the DRA (2006), ‘It is clear ment of economic growth. The Government appears to For example, NDP 2007-2013 (2006.3) proposes that ‘If Finance, 2006). One can’t have the cake—an increase in that Ireland’s economic growth has been an urban-led be oblivious to this fact. Despite all efforts exerted under Ireland is to retain a substantial proportion of its popu- rural population and traditional (industrial and services) phenomenon, with the Dublin Region providing the the various National Development Plans so far, Census lation in rural areas... Settlement policies are needed that employment—and eat it, to ensure the preservation and main engine of growth for the country as a whole.’ More 2006 shows marked deterioration in population and eco- take into account varying rural development contexts. enhancement of key rural assets. importantly, this trend in development will continue: nomic activity in the rural areas and particularly in the Enhanced accessibility must be linked with integrated This led to mimicry from local authori- ‘If the CSO’s more optimistic projections prove to be Border, Western Midlands and Western regions, i.e. the settlement policy to revitalise rural communities.’ And ties, as rural zones politically accepted and embraced accurate, then the Dublin Region could see its popula- areas receiving most funding per capita under the NDP furthermore, ‘at an overall level, the sustainable rural the state funding and development buzzwords. In many tion increase by almost 40% on 2001 levels rising to 1.55 and NSS programmes. settlement policy framework has as broad objectives: (1) cases, local authorities interpret NDP 2007-2013 objec- million by 2021’ (DRA, 2006). Ironically, Census 2006 In line with population concentrations, the To sustain and renew established rural communities... tives as a mandate to continue mixed development of already shows the Greater Dublin Area having 1,661,185 urban areas of the country hold a dominant position in (2) To strengthen the established structure of villages rural areas along suburban development patterns (see, residents. terms of overall economic activity. In 2002, the value of and smaller settlements… to accommodate additional for example, SERA, 2006 and SWRA, 2006). the goods and services produced in the Dublin Region population in a way that supports the viability of public Looking at the spatial distribution of dependency rates exceeded Euro 42 billion, or 37% of the national total. By transport and local infrastructure and services, (3) To over time, the pattern of a more productive population 2005 these figures increased to Euro 53 billion, or 40.5% ensure that key assets in rural areas such as water quality, residing in urban centres will remain. This will coincide of the national output. the natural and cultural heritage and the quality of the with the widening gap in favour of the urban centres’ Over the years, the urban areas experienced landscape are protected to support quality of life and share in total employment. By 2010, 66.7% of all high faster rates of jobs creation and renewal. While outside economic vitality.’ value added jobs in the country will be located in the the five main urban areas in the country the average Greater Dublin area—up from 62.7% in 2000. change in employment between 1995 and 2000 was only 102 103

Figure 2 Figure 3 Manufacturing Increasing density green areas are Urban areas (dark brown) to extra- �� transitions from rural (light green) urban areas (light grey) are based & Traded Services �� to ultra-rural/parkland areas on existent projections for NDP �� (darker green). 2006-2013.

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+8.2% for domestic and +4.3% for foreign jobs, urban Isolated Rural Regions (IR) exist at the margins of the e. Increased emphasis on high value-added services in areas had jobs change rates of +27% and +39% respec- Adjacent to Urban Regions, where small economies of the Irish economy will imply further concentration tively. For greater Dublin these figures were even higher, scale and a low degree of economic and social diversi- of economic activities within the five main urban with 46.7% of domestic jobs and 67.4% of foreign direct fication imply over-reliance on agriculture and tradi- areas and the drying out of foreign direct investment investment jobs being added to the economy between tional sectors. These areas represent a mix of rural and and domestic investment in rural locations. 1997 and 2000. These trends became even more pro- ultra-rural zones, with the latter distinguished from f. Increased emphasis on human capital-intensive nounced with rural and remote locations losing large the former primarily by the intensity of the agricultural technologies will amplify the importance of urban number of jobs in recent years. economy in the overall development mix. education centres, leading to a declining ability of The figures for jobs creation in advanced Figure 3 illustrates these areas and shows the rural areas to retain a young population. galway sectors of the economy are even more dramatic. Between the major locations of declining and growing population. dublin 1995 and 2000, Dublin experienced an increase of 17.3% Both the existent patterns of demographic and social evo- in advanced sectors employment. The urban areas of the Toward a green Ireland lution and the demand and supply pressures of modern- country experienced an average increase of 11.1%, while 4. Using the classification above, we can izing society experienced in Ireland suggest that within the rest of the country experienced an increase of only outline a pattern of organic growth-driven evolution limerick the next 20-30 years, rural Ireland will shift more toward 2%. In the rural regions, there was a net contraction in of the main regions. In doing so we first summarise the the IR-type of development, while the extra-urban zones high-quality employment of approximately 0.76%. The underlying demographic and socio-economic condi- will become increasingly urbanized. waterford fact that urban and adjacent regions have higher value- tions driving this evolutionary process: In this context, the organic evolutionary added economies is illustrated in Figure 2. a. Consistent with the widening gap between rural and cork process of spatial development suggests that by 2030, Distinct differences in patterns of develop- urban zones, some of the smaller towns, particularly Ireland will be composed of predominantly two types of ment allow us to distinguish three well-defined types of those located in the less developed periphery, are de areas, illustrated in Figure 3: regions: facto becoming IR-type entities. b. Despite the concerted efforts to reverse development Urbanized regions: focused on the main five cities, Urban and Suburban Regions (USU) of Dublin, Cork, and growth concentration in urban areas, USU and a these regions will exhibit population density similar to Limerick, Galway and Waterford—the regions where sec- few adjoining AU regions continue to separate from today’s Dublin, with all universities and tradable activi- toral composition of services and employment is ‘evenly the IR regions and are effectively merging into a Parkland and Rural Areas ties concentrated within their boundaries. A gradual Greater Urban Areas distributed and broadly based, productivity growth is diversified urban core. Population Growth Areas spatial diffusion from the high-rise, high-density urban strong and other factors (such as multipliers), perhaps c. Within the USU regions, the Greater Dublin Area Population Decline Areas core toward mixed development in the suburbs will from strong stores of infrastructure, are present’. exhibits unchallenged dominance as the focus of imply that the present-day extra-urban spaces of one-off economic development in the Republic. housing will be pulled into well-defined satellite-towns Adjacent to Urban Regions (AU) are extra-urban d. Rising economic affluence in the USU regions will and suburbs. Parts of extra-urban zones will supply high- areas that include parts of the Eastern, Southern, South exert added demand pressures on IR to supply land quality niche agricultural products to urban regions. Western and Mid Western Regions which ‘have yet to for recreational and environmental use, while the fully diversify their employment [and services] base and declining importance of agriculture in the economy, Ultra-rural regions: This will be large areas of predomi- which are not as yet experiencing marked productivity coupled with forthcoming reforms of the CAP, will nantly recreational lands with land-owners employed in gains as a result’. put under strain the concept of land as an input into land-maintenance, forestry and tourism-related services. agricultural production, favoured by Irish social Within these regions, some of the more remote locations planners. will cease to retain their current makeup as farm house- 104 105

holds will be pulled into urbanized regions. The land access, and compliance with environmental and Bibliography made available from failing agriculture will be aggre- safety regulations promoting the return of land to Blackwell (2001) ‘Population, Labour Force NSS(2001) ‘The National Spatial Strategy gated into larger holdings that can sustain more active its natural state. and Housing Demand Projections’ The Indications for the Way Ahead’, 2001. National Spatial Strategy, Final Report NSS (2001.6) National Spatial Strategy: forms of recreation, such as outdoor sports, hunting, b. Abandonment of all population maintenance and October 2001, Jonathan Blackwell and Irish Perspective. Paper 6 ‘Enterprise, Associates. fishing and naturalized semi-commercial forestry. investment-shifting policies in rural areas. Employment and Productivity Trends’. ‘Census 2006, Preliminary Report’ Central c. A unified system of private permits for recreational RENSS (2000) ‘Rural Enterprise, National Statistics Office A6/0988, July 2006. This scenario is largely consistent with future develop- activities, with proceeds ring-fenced to support Spatial Strategy’, NUI Maynooth, December DRA (2006) ‘The National Development 2000. Plan 2007-2013: A Submission by the Dublin ment trends outlined in the NDP (2006.3) itself: ‘The maintenance and improvements to the natural SERA (2006) ‘South-East Regional Regional Authority’ March 2006 majority of new jobs will continue to be created in serv- facilities supporting these activities. Authority Submission to the Department Finance (2006) ‘Presentation by Minister of Finance on the preparation of a National ices rather than manufacturing… [with new enterprises’] for Finance to Joint Oireachtas Committee Development Plan 2007-2013’, March 2006. on Finance and the Public Service on NDP preference for locations at or close to major points of If Ireland were to pursue its organic growth processes in SWRA (2006) ‘South West Regional 2007-2013’ 14th June, 2006 consumer demand… plus their requirements for infra- line with those experienced during the Celtic Tiger years, Authority Regional Submission on the National Development Plan 2007- 2013’, NDP (2006.2) ‘Section 2: Ireland’s Changing structure to trade in products and services which have the changes from rural to urban areas necessitated by March 2006. Spatial Structure, NDP 2007-2013’. a high information content. Local services, health care, the need for sustained growth will lead to a continued NDP (2006.3) ‘Section 3: Ireland’s Future leisure and tourism will become even more significant separation of rural areas from urban and extra-urban Spatial Structure, NDP 2007-2013’. as the population ages and disposable incomes rise in zones. The result will be a transformation of Ireland into the high productivity and traded sectors… Skills related a high growth and high-density island with three or four to technological and organisational development and core locations of economic and social activity, which ___ The author wishes to extend his gratitude innovation will become more significant requirements will support a set of large recreational zones similar to to Jennifer Hord for invaluable help with for business enterprises. Regions with a strong popula- the state and federal parks in the US. This process will designing this essay. tion base that can support high quality business infra- coincide with continued reduction in economic diversi- structure, technological development and innovation fication of the peripheral rural locations, to the point of will continue to be major attractions… A range of high rural areas emerging as publicly accessible forestry and quality locations will be necessary to present opportuni- parklands with developed recreational infrastructure. ties for business to attract skilled labour from abroad to If green and sustainable development is the support operations in Ireland.’ real objective of the Irish State, then a Republic where All of the above point to the continued the countryside is allowed to emerge as a naturalized decline of industrial and services development in rural parkland supporting a high value-added recreational locations—a conclusion missing from the NDP 2006- economy is the way forward. 2013 politicised vision of Ireland. In the context of the dual-patterned development, it is important for the future of tourism and recreational services to ensure consumers’ access to the land is made available by agricultural withdrawals. This will require: a. Establishment of post-CAP tax incentives for farmers to convert land from agricultural production into recreational use, subject to free public 106 107

Practice Tideaways—Expanding tourism and leisure: The current rural building boom is fuelled by an increasing population, MacGabhann Architects keen to express its increasing wealth in built form. One third of all existing houses in Ireland have been built since 1995, and most of these are outside major urban centres. Every year, one in three new houses is a ‘one-off’ house in a Team rural location, and up to one in eight is built as a second or holiday home. It is estimated that there are already 200,000 second or holiday homes in the Republic of Ireland, approximately one for every twenty people. housing demand: Jan Kaluza Much of the current housing demand is in coastal locations and seaside towns. The coastline is a limited and valuable Antoin MacGabhann resource. The whole island encompasses 3,172km of coastline for 5.2m people (6.8m in 2030), representing 0.61 (0.47) metres of coast per person. The coastline is under pressure, and ‘continuation of current trends will lead to Tarla MacGabhann deterioration in the coastal environment, both visually and physically’ (Coastal Zone Management, Spatial Planning Niels Merschbrock Unit, Department of the Environment and Local Government, May 2001). the dilemma of tourism: As one of the most conspicuous manifestations of contemporary tourism in Ireland, the holiday home lies at the crux of the Tanja Nopens conflict between coastal landscape preservation and development. In regions increasingly reliant on the tourism industry, planners must balance the environmental impact of such dwellings against the income they generate for Collaborators the local economy. the rundale system: Drawing on the historic Rundale system of land sharing, Tideaways proposes a transformation of affluent leisure, its social experience and its environmental impact. Instead of further Conor Moloney expansion, development is condensed at strategic locations along the coastline. Settlement extends onto the coastal Tobias Schmitz— shelf to include floating, seasonally-removable elements. Living spaces move with the ebb and flow of the tide, sometimes exposed, sometimes concealed, and provide continually changing views and shifting configurations of Designbrauerei outdoor spaces. Paths unexpectedly cross, short cuts emerge, and residents find they are suddenly neighbours. The Noel Fallon— restorative qualities of the natural elements, and their interactions with social arrangements, are greatly amplified in Pressure Hydraulics this responsive kinetic landscape.

81,000 The number of houses being built per annum (2005)

The number of houses per hectare in current 43Percentage of one-off houses in Tideaways Notes 9development patterns along the coastline rural areas in 2003 (36% in 2000) 8Lowest estimate, of the000 number of second or holiday homes being built annually 108 109

Loss of coastline—Portsalon—2000, 2002, 2030

‘The coastal zone will remain under pressure from second and holiday homes given the buoyant economy. It is clear however that continuation of current trends will lead to deterioration in the coastal environment, both visually and physically’

Coastal Zone Management, Spatial Planning Unit, 2000 Portsalon—small town on the west shore of Lough Swilly, Co. Donegal, townland of Croaghcross; Department of the Environment and Local Government, May 2001 permanent population estimated at 300 to 500.

The dilemma of tourism 2002 Demand for housing evidenced by the number of planning applications in Croaghross over the 5 years from 2001 to 2005: one-off houses 8; houses in schemes, 31; apartments 8; Total = 47. The beauty of the Irish coastline is a huge attraction and a key driver of our tourism industry. Visitors require accommodation, and the desired model is a holiday or second home. Yet, the proliferation of these holiday homes has the potential to destroy the very landscape that attracts people in the fi rst place. Despite being in use only 10-20% of the year, these buildings are visible 100% of this time. As the decline of fi shing industries, small farms and indigenous industry along the western seaboard depletes the area of its population and economic means of existence, tourism becomes a vital aspect to the survival of communities in these areas. If planning authorities are to control holiday development in rural and coastal areas, they must offer a 2030 Similar demand over the coming years would result in an additional 80 units by 2015 and a further development model which facilitates construction of holiday 93 units by 2030 within the extent of land shown i.e. two-thirds of the townland of Croaghross. houses in an environmentally and socially sustainable way. Oxfortd EnglishDictionary, Oxford UniversityPress & demographiccircumstances.’ ‘Intelligent functionaladaptationtoaspecific setofecological to eachother.’ and cultivatingseveralsmallstripsorpatchesnotcontiguous ‘A form ofjointoccupationland,eachholder occupying Rundale systemTory Island Outfield Current holidayhomesarebasedontheideaof Developing theTideawaymodel Concept the sameseaviews andstretchofcoastline. less landandallowing morethanonedwellingto get coastline issharedmoreequitably andsustainably, using the Rundalesystemoflanddistribution, theprecious the developmentofholidayhomes alongthecoast.Using The Tideawayconceptproposes analternativemodelfor the Rundalesystem Rediscovering aforgotten systemoflanddistribution— Condense as a‘tideaway’ratherthan‘hideaway’. the coastallocationsandtheirnaturalsocialcycles, reimagine theholidayhomeasmoreintegratedwith everyday life ofcoastalareas.Thisprojectseeksto houses hasapotentiallydevastatingeffect onthe However, thecumulativeeffect ofsomanyholiday ‘hideaway’—a retreatorrefugefromeverydaylife. 110 Headwall Infield 1973 (Vegetable Gardens) Enclosed Garrai Clachan

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�� views ofthesea. move upanddown withthetide,theyshare same rows sharethesamepieceofcoastline and,asthehouses Like theRundalesystemofland distribution,allthree (which areremovedfor safe storagewhennotinuse). and arowofﬂoating homesonpontoonsinthewater with thetide(disappearingunderground whennotinuse) cottages, arowofdwellingswhichmoveupanddown built paralleltothecoast—arowofpermanentterraced intrusion tovisualamenity. Threerowsofdwellings are the timebut,beingvisible100%oftime,causesuch house developments,whicharevacantfor 80%to90% of The Tideawayprojectseekstoaddresstheissueofholiday forces tomovethehouses Part-time use=part-timevisibility—utilizingtidal Conceal of coastline. occupies theequivalentof11metres development, eachcottagetypically In currentpatternsofholidayhome equivalent of2metrescoastline. Portsalon. Eachdwellingoccupiesthe as illustratedbythedevelopmentof of 9dwellingsperhectare(3.6acre), holiday homedevelopmenthasadensity hectare (21peracre).Thetypicalexisting development densityof52unitsper The Tideawaymodelproposesa as anextendedbuildingarea Enlarging theplot—utilisingwater Extend 111 ��

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Using the force of nature – moving houses

Low tide—in occupation

High tide—in occupation

The Tideaway module Empty—any state of tide 114 115

Holiday season—houses in occupation, high tide Holiday season—houses in occupation, low tide Off-season—sunken and removed houses, all tides

Capacity Living within the course of nature— Implementation—how and where does the module work? A permanent Number of dwelling units 78 a unique holiday experience The Tideaway development model suits locations on B sinkable in a single Tideaway module Number of dwelling units 1,248 The Tideaway houses rise and fall with the tide and as inlets that are protected from exposed ocean swells, C removable in a single Tideaway module such they connect the inhabitants closer to nature and which is typically where villages along the Irish coastline placed in 16 locations Basic module: Extended along the coastline the universe (it is the gravitational forces of the moon are located. Locations with a rise and fall of tide not 3 rows of 26 houses = 78 houses Number of dwelling units 2,496 and the sun that create the tides). This connection with exceeding 2m are ideal. The mean rise and fall of the tide hydraulic connection if the module is doubled nature further enriches the holiday experience. The along the coast of Ireland is 2.2m. The module is easily Extended perpendicular Number of dwelling units 4,160 to coastline if the module is doubled and extended to 5 rows residents in the sinkable houses experience an ever- adaptable to various landscape formations and extendable changing view as their houses rise up and down with the to suit local demand. tide. They live in a moving landscape that reinforces the connection to place and landscape.

Split into smaller parts Bend to fit the landscape

Extendability and adaptability 116 117

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Macroscale—suitable locations for Tideaway modules Microscale—plug into existing village Sheltered from strong Atlantic seas The Tideaway module ties into existing village Close to redundant ﬁ shing harbours for infrastructure. Its mix of holiday and permanent homes off-season storage of removable houses creates a symbiotic relationship with the existing village.

2030 Portsalon—196 new houses (the projected demand for this area by 2030) utilising the Tideaway model of development instead of the current one-off house pattern of development. See page 109 for comparison 118 119

Practice vertical sprawl is a provocation intended to arouse Irish perception of what a house should provide—front and ODOS architects interest in how we live and what the possible repercussions back gardens, a driveway for one’s car and a structure which could be, should we continue to indulge current Irish the owner can easily deﬁne as his/her own. We are presenting a Team development trends (horizontal sprawl). It is a reaction to hypothetical scenario which panders to these Irish demands and David O’Shea the seemingly unregulated expansion of Ireland’s major cities suggests a fantastical vision of how Irish towns and cities may and towns. It recognises a number of uniquely Irish attitudes be forced to develop should we refuse to adopt higher density Darrell O’Donoghue and conditions and rather than trying to subvert them, uses models. Vertical sprawl holds a mirror up to Irish society and BrenB them as both the inspiration and material for a response. The asks a number of questions, as ultimately the inhabitants of nature of recent urban expansion has been fueled by the twin Ireland in 2030 will determine their personal and communal Irish obsessions with land and the car, creating the common architectural landscape.

A functional and beautiful proposition: Vertical sprawl represents an exciting opportunity to effect a change in the perception of suburbia and a chance to direct future development in a more sustainable manner. Vertical sprawl takes already accepted typologies and arranges them vertically, close to the urban centres they serve and connected directly to the proposed infrastructural network that will sustain them. All of the elements associated with traditional horizontal models remain: front & back gardens, detached & semi-detached housing and direct access by car are accommodated on plates of varying sizes arranged around a central core of interconnecting roadways. Individual communities are encouraged and developed around a core support structure maintained by a mixture of necessary support services—educational, recreational, retail and agricultural—often overlooked in current large-scale residential development. This self- sufficient attitude is encouraged through the development of alternative means of energy production from a number of different sources, all based locally to each community. The more efficient use of land available for residential development will limit the spread of urban development and ease pressure on the surrounding countryside and associated service infrastructure. The architecture of vertical sprawl is loosely defined. The process will begin with the initial construction of the central structure and its altering appearance will be the result of the architectural aspirations of its inhabitants. People will be free to develop a home of their choice, ensuring the unique image of each structure. This will aid the development of distinct communities at a controlled rate in urban and suburban locations capable of supporting them. The mixture of uses associated with each development will be a direct response to the needs of the area in which it is placed—mixes of residential, recreational, educational and commercial development as required. If the surrounding areas require more of one than the other, vertical sprawl responds accordingly. In the Ireland of 2030, the sky’s the limit...

*All ﬁgures courtesy of VerticalSprawl Inc, Vertical taken from their 2030 prospectus: ‘The joys of higher living’

Number of Irish people, out of ten, who prefer sprawl Notes Percentage increase in daily productivity thanks to Vertical Sprawl* Percentage of increased happiness due to Vertical Sprawl* Vertical Sprawl* 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

Practice Fluidcity: The ideal of the family farm, the small farmer, holds a central role in the psyche of the Irish people, so dominic stevens architect important that the Irish Constitution states, ‘The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that there may be established on the land in economic security as many families as in the circumstances shall be practicable.’ Team (1937 Constitution, Article 45.2v). Modern society has, at least superﬁcially, changed our expectations. Our new-found economic prosperity has presented us with countless choices and opportunities which are now taken for granted. Dominic Stevens The city has dominion over these opportunities, the city seems to be the place to be, urban is upwardly mobile. Despite this lure of the city, the Irish remain fundamentally uncomfortable in the metropolis: no one wants to give up the idea of a house and garden and this gives rise to ever-increasing suburbanisation. A suburban life means that people’s homes, their work, schools and shops are remote from one another. In this situation a sense of community ceases to exist. This project examines a new super-rural settlement where a ‘soft infrastructure’, the existing river system, affords traditionally urban advantages to a linear rural settlement. It recognises the value of a rooted stable community structure, yet understands that this can have a symbiotic relationship with contemporary, mobile and complex needs and desires. It seeks to show that a living, productive landscape is a possibility at a time when policy is dictating towards landscapes of nostalgia. I believe that the rural landscape must be intelligently transformed, not preserved as a static, framed picture postcard.

Length of the Shannon-Erne river 278system in kilometres 240,000Proposed population of river complex. Current urban population, incl Limerick, Athlone and Carrick-on-Shannon is 80,000.

800Kilometres of usable shoreline

Irish Constitution, Article 45.2v: ‘The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that there may be Fluidcity Notes 400People per kilometre of river 1937established on the land in economic security as many families as in the circumstances shall be practicable.’ 130 131

The Shannon-Erne river system The waterways of Ireland—the rivers, canals and lakes, more than 1,000km in total length—are under used. I propose a vibrant, intensive linear settlement along the banks of the Shannon-Erne system, which is 278 km long, with 800 km of useable shoreline. This grand, majestic river complex becomes a useful, sustainable infrastructure again, a population of bank-dwellers farming the river plain and using the river as a central artery for communication. 80,000 Population of existing towns

Settlement The River Shannon The fl ood plains of the Shannon are known as the callows, from caladh, meaning river meadow. They are up to 2km 160,000 wide on each side of the river. Using less than 10% of this New SuperRural population precious natural landscape, a new responsive architecture will be made along the banks of the river and lakes. Houses will rise and fall as the river swells and fl oods. The unique conditions of waterside life will generate a unique new culture of settlement, based on a 500-year- old tradition of of rural fl ood-plain settlement. 132 133

Mobile, nimble A moving city that appears overnight then vanishes quietly, departing in the mist to a new location; an ephemeral, adaptable resource, with each visit it changes size and make up, adapting organically to the desires of the inhabitants of this ﬂ uid, linear settlement. Though a large proportion of the new dwellings would be in a ﬁ xed position, the infrastructure of servicing will be mobile. Instead of travelling to the city, the city travels to you. Cinema, bank, shop, nightclub, art gallery, museum—everything you need or enjoy—plies the river, Quiet bringing the world to your door. Electrical boats, batteries charged with wind, solar and water turbines, constantly on the move—the circus comes to town.

Mobile city

Market day 134 135

Food Work patterns Nature and a dynamic vernacular At present over 40% of road freight is connected to the Repeated studies show that it is desirable to work close This new settlement on the river sits on what is in part movement of food—from the land, for export (nine out to your home. This brings benefits to your immediate a sensitive natural habitat for many species of birds, of ten cows produced in Ireland are exported), and from family and to the community at large. Children gain wildlife and plant life. It achieves a viable density, while abroad for our supermarket shelves. This will not be understanding of what their parents do in the world leaving a large proportion of the landscape untouched, necessary in the fluidcity, where enough land for local of work, and the culture of the workplace becomes more a potential wilderness. It seeks to understand and work food production—300m2 per person, which allows for non- a part of ordinary life—working as living, not just toil. with nature, resisting our compulsive, single-minded intensive production and rotation of crops and livestock— A thriving local economy is supported by the day-round efforts to control water through elaborate interventions, will be set aside on the fertile river banks. presence of everybody in the community. rather it will work with a dynamic relation between land, The structure of work patterns has moved away from water and settlement. Energy centralised production in the immense factory, away The approach suggests that each geographic region At present, Ireland exports agricultural produce, produced from the moving of paper up and down the corridors of can be made richer if the built is informed by the natural. uneconomically, relying on heavy fossil fuel use for mach- Land use large office buildings. All kinds of work, from the skilled This leads to a dynamic vernacular, a built environment inery, fertilisers and feed production and then, with the to the unskilled, can happen in smaller, more personable that doesn’t just co-exist with, but has a symbiotic proceeds earned from these exports, we import fossil fuel. groupings. Local working, therefore, is full of opportunity relationship with, the natural. Producing food for the global market is increasingly not Land use per person in the fluidcity connected to the world: high-value items viable, where food prices decrease and energy prices rise. travel quickly by internet, low-value items slowly, down The new settlement will have no need for importing 2 the river to the offshore seaports. A mix of types of work energy. Small-scale river turbines and windfarms will Energy: 900m during the day are of benefit to general well being. In the provide local electricity requirements and 900m2 of fluidcity a part of the day can be spent on food or energy woodland per person can meet heating requirements. 2 production, though about five hours a week is all that Biodiesel for boats can similarly be produced on the fertile Food: 300m would be necessary. river bank through the propagation of biomass crops. 136 137

Density Clustered communities Along a 250m-wide strip on each side of the river, 1,200m2 When these sites are fixed in position, the dwellings and per per person allows for food and energy. Each kilometre workplaces will be built by the inhabitants, the act of of shoreline supports an average of 200 people, so for building facilitating the formation of a happy community. the entire system which has a usable shoreline of 800 km These clusters would house 35 people; this is similar in we have a population of 160,000, just under the current size to pre-land clearance rural settlements in Ireland, and population of Fingal or Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. to a typical Parisian or Berlin apartment building. These clusters would include both domestic and work spaces. Prefabricated sites Each cluster is responsible for 4.2 hectares of productive Floating sites are prefabricated by current techniques land and acts as guardian of an extensive wilderness area. using a foam core encased in concrete as a building base. This base is fitted with a translucent roof, producing a sheltered microclimate where an outside life can be pursued out of the rain. They are towed down the river to their mooring position. Once in position, they slide up and down their fixing poles as the waters rise and fall. 138 139

Critical mass 400 people per kilometre (both sides of river) generates the critical mass needed for a vibrant community and the supply of essential services like schools, doctors and local shops. Within ten minutes in a rowing boat you have contact with 400 people, enough to support, for example, 400 people live per kilometer of river a small primary school. Within twenty minutes in a motor boat you reach 2,400 individuals, enough for a secondary school.

Plugged in and having it all 2,400 The fl uidcity responds to the opportunities afforded people by motor boat in 20 minutes us by electronic communication. Catering for all those people who can now fi nd a way of working away from the traditional city, it allows them to balance that work with a bucolic life of growing food, rearing animals and chopping 400 wood. It gives the farmer access to the excitement of the people by rowing boat in 10 minutes city, and the urban type the benefi ts of a relaxed outdoor life. In modern Ireland there exists in most of us these two, now compatible, sides. 140 141

Boyd Cody Architects Bucholz | McEvoy Architects dePaor architects FKL architects Henchion+Reuter Architects heneghan.peng.architects www.boydcodyarch.com www.bmcea.com www.depaor.com www.fklarchitects.com www.henchion-reuter.com www.hparc.com established in Dublin, 2000 established in Dublin, 1996 dePaor O’Neill Architects, established with Emma O’Neill established in Dublin in 1998 by Michelle Fagan, established Henchion+Reuter Architekten in Leipzig established in New York in 1999 and relocated to in Dublin in 1991 and dissolved in 1994; dePaor architects Paul Kelly and Gary Lysaght following collaborations (now in Berlin), 1994 and Henchion+Reuter Architects in Dublin in 2001 Dermot Boyd b Belfast, 1967 Merritt Bucholz b Chigago, Illinois, 1966 established in 1994, initially in Cork; in Dublin since 1996 throughout the 1990s. They were founder members, Dublin, 1998 DipArch DIT and BArchSc TCD, 1990. Worked for Historic BArch Cornell University, 1993; MArch Princeton with Ralph Bingham, Tom Creed and Cliona White, of Róisín Heneghan b Belmullet, 1963 American Engineering Record, Washington, DC, 1987; University, 1995. Worked for Emilio Ambasz & Tom dePaor b London, 1967 d-Compass in 1991, jointly winning the first Smithfield Martin Henchion b Cork, 1967 BArch UCD 1987; MArch Harvard University, 1992. Ahrends Burton & Koralek, 1988; Alberto Campo Baeza, Associates, 1990-92; in the Paris offices of James BArch UCD, 1991, having previously studied at DIT. competition in 1991 and securing 2nd prize in the BArch UCD 1991. Worked for Gerry Cahill, 1991-92; Worked for Michael Graves in Princeton, 1991-96, and 1989; Scott Tallon Walker, 1990; Helm Architects, 1991; Stewart Polshek, Ricardo Bofill and Michel W Kagan, Worked for Emilio Battisti, 1988-89; Derek Tynan, third Yokohama urban design competition, 1992. FKL Raupach und Schurck, 1992-94. Teaches at the University New York, 1996-2001. Teaches at UCD; formerly design John Pawson, 1992; Shay Cleary, 1993; McCullough 1992-94; A&D Wejchert 1995. Inaugural Professor 1990; O’Donnell + Tuomey, 1990. Teaches at UCD; architects co-curated Practising Architecture: Five of Limerick; formely at UCD. studio tutor at Cornell University and visiting critic at Mulvin, 1994. In private practice since 1994. Teaches of Architecture at the University of Limerick, 2005; formerly (incl visiting critic) at the AA, University of Architectural Experiments with Patrick T Murphy, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania Klaus Reuter b Bonn, 1964 at DIT; formerly (incl visiting critic) at the AA, QUB and formerly visiting professor at Harvard University East London, London Metropolitan University, Bartlett Director of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 2004. in Philadelphia and the AA. Jury member, Canadian Dipl-Ing Architekt FH München, 1991. Worked for UCD. President AAI, 1997-98. and visiting lecturer at Princeton University, Cornell School of Architecture, University of British Columbia at For individual biographies, see Curators, overleaf. Museum of Human Rights competition, 2004 and RIAI Behnisch und Sabatke, 1991-92; Raupach und Schurck, University, UCD and DIT. Vancouver, National College of Art and Design in Dublin Triennial Gold Medal, 2005. Peter Cody b Tralee, 1967 1992-94. and Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. Architect in Awards and distinctions DipArch DIT and BArchSc TCD, 1990; MScArch, Columbia Karen McEvoy b Dublin, 1962 Shi-Fu Peng b New York, 1966 residence, National Sculpture Factory, Cork, 1994-96. 2000 AAI Special Award: Three Houses in Rathmines (as Awards and distinctions University (Fulbright scholar), 1996. Worked for Judge BArch UCD, 1984. Worked for Emilio Ambasz & BArch Cornell University, 1989; MArch Harvard Boyd Kelly Whelan); 2002 RIAI Award: Silicon & Software 1995 1st Prize: Afrikahaus, Zoological Gardens, Dresden Skelton Smith, 1987; McGarry Ní Éanaigh, 1988; Corrigan Associates, 1987-92; Polshek Salomon, 1992-94; Michael Awards and distinctions University, 1992 (and 1992 Clifford Wong Prize in Systems, Dublin; 2002 RIAI Award: The S House, Co (in association with Architekturbüro Mayer+Kölsch, Soundy Kilaiditi, 1989; Arthur Gibney, 1990-91; Álvaro Graves, 1994-95. Formerly visiting professor at Harvard 1991 1st Prize: Museum Building and Landscape Housing). Worked for Michael Graves, Princeton, Wicklow; 2002 1st Prize: Martin Valley Sculpture Park Leipzig); 1997 1st Prize: Naumdorfchen Theatre, Siza, 1992-95; Wendy Joseph, 1996-97. In private University and visiting lecturer at DIT and UCD. competition, Royal Gunpowder Mills, Ballincollig, 1991-96; Skidmore Owings and Merrill, New York, 1996- competition, Co Cork; 2003 AAI Award: Baldoyle Library Leipzig; 1999 AAI Award: Haus am Zoo, Leipzig; 1999 practice since 1998. Teaches at UCD; formerly (incl Co Cork; 1993 AAI Award: Royal Gunpowder Mills, 2001. Teaches at UCD; formerly design studio tutor at Awards and distinctions and Local Authority Offices; 2004 AAI Award: Brick RIAI Award: Haus am Zoo, Leipzig; 2001 AAI Award: visiting critic) at DIT. President, AAI, 2000-02. Ballincollig; 1994 RIAI Award: Royal Gunpowder Mills, Cornell University and visiting critic at the University of 1996 1st Prize: Fingal County Hall competition, Swords, House, Milltown, Dublin; 2004 RIAI Award: Baldoyle Millennium Tower, Stranorlar, Co Donegal; 2004 RIAI Ballincollig; 1996 1st Prize: A13 Artscape competition, Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the AA. Awards and distinctions Dublin (in association with BDP Dublin); 2001 RIAI Library and Local Authority Offices; 2004 RIAI Award: Best Building in the Landscape Award: Stone House, Co London; 1997 AAI Award: Wallpaper House, Cork; 1997 1998 RIAI Award: Noho Loft, New York; 1998 1st Prize: Award: Fingal County Hall; 2001 RIAI Award: Welcoming Apartment, North Great Georges Street, Dublin; 2005 Wicklow; 2004 RIAI Award: Sports and Youth Services Awards and distinctions Institute of Designers in Ireland Award: Eden Restaurant, Wolfe Tone Park competition, Dublin; 2000 AAI Special Pavilions, Government Buildings, Dublin; 2002 Ireland’s RIAI Award: Extension, St James Terrace, Dublin Centre, Cabra, Dublin; 2004 RIAI Award: Riding (Therapy) 1994 Winner, competition for reuse of Central Park Dublin; 1997 RIAI Triennial Gold Medal 1992-94 shortlist: Award: Three Houses in Rathmines (as Boyd Kelly representative at the 8th International Architecture Centre, Biburg; 2004 1st Prize: Housing at Plochingen Reservoir, New York; 1997 Winner, ‘Bigfoot’ football Royal Gunpowder Mills, Ballincollig; 2000 RIAI Award: Selected Publications Whelan); 2002 1st Prize: Monaghan County Council Exhibition, Venice Biennale; 2002 RIBA Award: Fingal competition; 2004 1st Prize: Footbridge at Laufen stadium competition, Los Angeles; 1999 Winner, VAN, National Sculpture Factory, Cork; 2000 Ireland’s 2002 FKL architects: S3, monograph on Silicon & Offices competition; 2003 RIAI Award: Ormond Road, County Hall; 2004 RIBA Award: Limerick County Hall, competition; 2005 AAI Award: Youth and Community Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects representative at the 7th International Architecture Software Systems, with texts by Dermot Boyd and Dublin; 2003 RIAI Award: Temple Cottages, Dublin; Dooradoyle; 2004 Business Week / Architectural Record Centre, Donore Avenue, Dublin; 2005 RIAI Award: Youth Forum; 2000 1st Prize: Áras Cill Dara, Devoy Park, Exhibition, Venice Biennale; 2001 AAI Award: N3, Jonathan Sergison. ISBN 0-9543317-0-2 2005 AAI Downes Medal (premier award): House at Award: Limerick County Hall; 2004 1st Prize: Westmeath and Community Centre, Donore Avenue, Dublin. Naas competition (in association with Arthur Gibney Ireland’s first temporary pavilion at the Venice Biennale; 2004 Practising Architecture: Five Architectural Alma Lane, Monkstown; 2005 AAI Award: Wellington County Hall competition; 2005 RIAI Triennial Gold Medal & Partners); 2001 AIA NY Chapter Design Award: 2001 New Trends of Architecture in Europe and Japan, Experiments, exhibition catalogue with texts by Patrick T Project assistants Road, Dublin; 2005 RIAI Award: House at Alma Lane, 1998-2000 Special Award: Fingal County Hall; 2005 RIAI Dept of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands curated by Álvaro Siza, Wiel Arets and Fumihiko Maki; Murphy and FKL architects. isbn 1-903875-15-3 Olaf Behrens b Berlin, 1976 Monkstown; 2005 10x10_2: 100 Architects 10 Critics, Award: SAP, Galway; 2006 RIAI Award: The Leinster HQ competition, Dublin; 2003 1st Prize: Grand 2003 Corus / Building Design Young Architect of the Dipl-Ing Architekt Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2005 Phaidon (London & New York); 2006 AAI Award: House Pavilions, Dáil Éireann, Dublin; 2006 Chicago Athenaeum Project assistants Egyptian Museum, Giza, Cairo; 2003 1st Prize: Hotel Year; 2004 AAI Award: Utility Building, Vernon Avenue, Michael Robert Conroy b Dublin, 1974 at Sorrento Heights, Dalkey; 2006 RIAI Award: House at International Architecture Award: SAP, Galway; 2006 Luis Aguirre Manso b Zamora, 1980 competition, Kilternan, Dublin; 2004 1st Prize: Carlisle Clontarf, Dublin; 2004 RIAI Award: Utility Building, BArch UCD, 1997 Richmond Place, Dublin. Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award: ETS Arquitectura, University of Valladolid, 2006 Pier competition, Dun Laoghaire; 2004 Metamorph, 9th Vernon Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin; 2005 10x10_2: 100 Trine Kobbelvedt b Copenhagen, 1975 Elm Park mixed-use development, Dublin (under Michael Bannon b Dublin 1979 International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale Project assistant Architects 10 Critics, Phaidon (London & New York). Cand.arch Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, construction, completion in 2007). Graduating BArch DIT, 2007 (Carlisle Pier); 2005 The Flood, 2nd International James Rossa O’Hare b Cork, 1980 Copenhagen, 2006 Selected Publications Jeff Bolhuis b Leidschendam, 1980 Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam (‘Big Foot’); 2005 1st BArch UCD, 2005 Project assistant Mary O’Neill b Wexford, 1981 2001 N3, with texts by Peter Noever and Raymund Ryan. MSc Architecture TU Delft, 2005 Prize: Giant’s Causeway Visitor Centre competition, Ralf Kampe b Lower Saxonia, 1964 BArch UCD, 2004 isbn 09540422-0-4 Deirdre Brophy b Dublin, 1980 Co Antrim; 2006 RIAI Award: Áras Cill Dara, Devoy Dipl-Ing BUGH Wuppertall, 2000 Werner Weidenberg b Sittard, 1969 Graduating BArch UCD, 2008 Park, Naas; 2006 RIBA Award: Áras Cill Dara, Devoy Project assistant Dipl-Ing Architekt FH Oldenburg Dara Burke b Dublin, 1980 Park, Naas; 2006 Winner, Mountjoy Urban Village Anna Hofheinz b Bad Mergentheim, 1982 BArch DIT, 2004 competition, Dublin; 2006 Included in Fast Company’s Graduating from TU Stuttgart in 2007, having also Miriam Delaney b Portlaoise, 1979 ‘Fast 50’ list of global figures ‘who are writing the previously studied architecture at TU Delft BArch UCD, 2003 history of the next 10 years.’ Andrew Griffin b Dublin 1983 Project assistants Graduating BArch DIT 2007 Emer O’Daly b Dublin, 1978 Laurence Lord b Dublin, 1980 BArch UCD, 2004 BArch DIT, 2006 Kathryn Stutts b Durham, North Carolina, 1981 Donncha O Shea b Dublin 1978 BS Arch University of Virginia in Charlottesville, 2003. BA TCD 2001; graduating BArch DIT, 2008 Graduating MArch Yale, 2008 Tara Quinn b Donegal 1985 Graduating BArch DIT, 2008 Abbreviations AA The Architectural Association, London AAI Architectural Association of Ireland DIT Dublin Institute of Technology QUB Queen’s University Belfast RIAI Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland TCD Trinity College Dublin Biographies UCD University College Dublin, National University of Ireland 142 143

MacGabhann Architects ODOS architects dominic stevens architect Shane O’Toole Michelle Fagan FKL architects Constantin Gurdgiev www.macgabhannarchitects.ie www.odosarchitects.com established in Dublin in 1995 Commissioner Curator Dr Constantin Gurdgiev was born in Moscow in 1970. established in Letterkenny in 1975 by Antoin established in Dublin, 2002 and relocated to Cloone, Co Leitrim in 1999 Inaugural curator/director of the Irish Architecture Michelle Fagan DipArch BArchSc MRIAI RIBA was born in He is the Editor of Business&Finance, Ireland’s largest MacGabhann, father of the current directors, and Foundation, Shane O’Toole was born in Dublin in 1955. Dublin in 1966 and graduated from Bolton Street, Dublin business publication, a Lecturer in Economics at expanded in 1997 following the return to Ireland of Darrell O’Donoghue b Galway, 1974 Dominic Stevens b London, 1965 He was a founding director of urban design collective Institute of Technology, in 1990. After working in Dublin University College Dublin and a Research Associate at Antoin and Tarla from Glasgow and Berlin DipArch DIT and BArchSc TCD, 1998. Worked for Brian BArch UCD, 1989. Worked for Christoph Langhof and Group 91 Architects before joining Tegral, where he she worked in Frankfurt and Berlin for Rhode Kellerman the Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity O’Connell, 1996-97; Peter Cody, 1998; Hassett Ducatez, Leipe Stegelmann, Berlin, 1989-1995. Has taught at UCD. has been company architect since 1994. He is a past Wawrowsky (1993-95), OM Ungers and Arge Hoger College, Dublin. He is also a Founder and Academic Tarla MacGabhann b Donegal, 1965 1999-2001; Douglas Wallace, 2001; Ahrends Burton & Architect-in-residence, Roscommon County Council, President of the AAI, was co-founder of Docomomo Hare/RKW (1995-97). She worked for Ahrends Burton Director of the Open Republic Institute— BA DipArch Bartlett School of Architecture, University of Koralek, 2001-02. 2005: ‘Making Houses in Rural Ireland’. Editor of International at Eindhoven in 1990 and is, since 1999, & Koralek in Dublin before establishing FKL architects www.openrepublic.org—Ireland’s only independent London, 1991, having studied previously at Letterkenny Building Material, the journal of the AAI, 1999-2000. David O’Shea b Dublin, 1971 Irish architecture critic for The Sunday Times. He was in 1998 with Paul Kelly and Gary Lysaght. Ms Fagan has economic and social policy think-tank, for whom he edits Regional Technical College and Thames College, London. DipArchTech DIT, 1992; BA Arch University of Liverpool, Awards and distinctions Ireland’s Commissioner for Metamorph, the Venice taught at DIT and UCD and was selected for the AJ / the quarterly Open Republic magazine and co-edits the Worked for Daniel Libeskind as senior architect on 1994; DipArch DIT and BArchSc TCD, 1998. Worked 1999 AAI Award: ‘Domestic Acupuncture’; 2005 Arts Biennale’s 9th International Architecture Exhibition in Corus 40 under 40 exhibition at the V&A in London in weekly Policy Watch newsletter. the Jewish Museum, Berlin, 1991-96. Teaches at QUB; for Ahrends Burton & Koralek in London and Dublin, Council / Office of Public Works: Kevin Kieran Award, 2002, and a member of the jury for the Mies van der 2005. He is a Member of the Academy of Political visiting critic in Ireland, Britain and Germany. 1994-97; Sheppard Robson, 1996; McGarry Ní Éanaigh, a research bursary worth ¤50,000. Rohe Award for European Architecture in 2003. He is Science, the American Economic Association and the Antoin MacGabhann b Donegal, 1967 1998-2001; Douglas Wallace, 2001-02. Teaches at DIT. a Fellow of the Salzburg Seminar. Mr O’Toole won the American Finance Association. Dr. Gurdgiev holds Selected Publications BA BAI civil engineering TCD, 1988; MBA University of Grand Prix at the Cracow Architecture Biennale in 1989 Paul Kelly FKL architects a PhD in Macroeconomics and Finance from Trinity Awards and distinctions 1999 Domestic, an approach to the design of domestic Strathclyde, Glasgow, 1995. Worked for WS Atkins in for Collaboration: The Pillar Project. He was a finalist in Curator College, Dublin, an MA in Economics from Johns 2006 AAI Award: 13a Thor Place, Stoneybatter, Dublin. buildings. Mermaid Turbulence isbn 1-901776-99-9 London as chartered engineer and Bovis Construction the Mies van der Rohe Award in 1996 and was awarded Hopkins University and an MA in Pure Mathematics 2001 ‘Drawing by Hand’, in Element, Mermaid Turbulence Paul Kelly DipArchTech DipArch BArchSc MRIAI RIBA was in Glasgow as senior manager. Visiting lecturer at the UIA’s Sir Patrick Abercrombie Prize in 2002 for Group from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to 2003 ‘What Becomes of Rural Ireland?’ in Irish Review, born in Dublin in 1964 and graduated from Bolton Street, Letterkenny Institute of Technology. Illustrator 91’s redevelopment of Temple Bar, Dublin. He won the joining University College Dublin, Dr. Gurdgiev taught Cork University Press Dublin Institute of Technology, with a first class honours BrenB b 1974 AAI’s Downes Medal and received a high commendation economics and mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin Awards and distinctions 2005 ‘Neo Rural Architecture’ in Building Material 13, degree in 1990. After working in London for Corrigan An award-winning cartoonist and illustrator currently in the RIAI’s Triennial Gold Medal for The Ark (Temple and Johns Hopkins University. 2003 AAI Award: Local Administrative Office, AAI Soundy Kilaiditi (1989-90), he returned to work in Ireland based in Dublin. After graduating from art college with Bar, 1995), Europe’s first cultural centre for children, Letterkenny, Co Donegal; 2003 RIAI Award: Local for McGarry Ní Éanaigh (1990-98) and O’Mahony Pike a degree in Fine Arts in 1995, he moved to Köln, where designed with Michael Kelly and Susan Cogan. Administrative Office, Letterkenny; 2003 RIAI Best (1998). He established FKL architects in 1998 with his comics were first published in RAYZOR magazine. He Frank McDonald Building in the Landscape Award: Carton LeVert House, Michelle Fagan and Gary Lysaght. Mr Kelly teaches at returned to Ireland in 1998 and self-published the comic Co Donegal; 2005 AJ Small Projects Award: Greenbox DIT and has taught at UCD. He was President of the AAI Frank McDonald was born in Dublin in 1950 and lives in anthology, Toenail Clippings. Issue 4 was nominated for Ciarán ÓGaora Studio. in 1996-97 and Deputy Commissioner of Ireland’s entry Temple Bar. Educated at St Vincent’s CBS Glasnevin and best self-published comic at the International Comics Deputy Commissioner at the 9th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice UCD, he is Environment Editor of The Irish Times, having Project assistants Festival in Angolueme, France, in 2000. His work now Ciarán ÓGaora BDes (VisCom) ANCAD was born in Dublin Biennale, 2004. He represented Ireland at the second been the newspaper’s Environment Correspondent Jan Kaluza b Cracow, 1981 regularly appears in magazines, comic anthologies in 1967 and graduated from the National College of Art Young European Architects Forum in Rotterdam in 2005 since 1986. He has won several awards, including one MA Architecture Cracow University of Technology, 2005 and on CD covers throughout Europe. He exhibits and Design with a first class honors degree in Visual and is a member of the editorial board of Architecture for Outstanding Work in Irish Journalism for a series of Niels Merschbrock b Münster, 1969 internationally as part of the CANDY collective. Communications in 1991. After working in Rotterdam Ireland. articles in 1979 entitled ‘Dublin - What Went Wrong?’. Dipl-Ing Architekt University of Applied Science, www.brenb.net with Proforma (1992–95) he returned to Ireland to In 1988 he won a Lord Mayor’s Millennium Medal for Aachen, 2001 work with Designworks. He became a partner and his work in highlighting the architecture of Dublin. Tanja Nopens b Frankfurt, 1973 creative director of the practice in 1997. In 2003 he Gary Lysaght FKL architects He is author of The Destruction of Dublin (1985) and Dipl-Ing Architekt University of Applied Science, left Designworks to establish Zero-G. Mr ÓGaora has Curator Saving the City (1989), two books that helped to change Aachen, 2005 taught at the Institute of Art, Design & Technology and public policy on urban renewal. His third book, The Gary Lysaght DipArch BArchSc MRIAI was born in Cork in Collaborators has lectured at NCAD, DIT and the Royal Academy in Construction of Dublin (2000), became a non-fiction 1965 and graduated from Bolton Street, Dublin Institute Conor Moloney The Hague. He is director of design with Touchstone bestseller. He is also joint author with James Nix of of Technology, in 1990. After working in Dublin and Tobias Schmitz, Designbrauerei Healthcare Group; a director of the Corn Exchange Chaos at the Crossroads (2005), a book documenting the Frankfurt, he returned to Dublin, where he worked for Noel Fallon, Pressure Hydraulics Theatre Company; and a director of SEEDartscience. environmental destruction of Ireland. Derek Tynan (1997-98) and Urban Projects (1998). He established FKL architects in 1998 with Michelle Fagan and Paul Kelly. Mr Lysaght has taught at DIT and UCD Jennifer Keegan and represented Ireland at the first Young European Architects Forum in Antwerp in 2002. Jennifer Keegan was born in Dublin in 1966 and studied French and Spanish at TCD, graduating in 1988. After a year in Madrid, she worked in London at Vogue before returning to Dublin in 1993 to present RTE’s fashion programme, Head to Toe. In 1998, she moved into independent filmmaking; her first documentary, Real Men Don’t Wear Togs, won a Premio Ondas in 1999 at Spain’s equivalent of the Baftas. She produced a trilogy of visual documentaries about the changing face of Dublin for TG4 in 2000 and 2001. Her first drama, Cake (2002), starring Brendan Gleeson, was awarded an IFTA for best short and a special mention at the Cork Film Festival. 144

Colophon Photographic credits Commissioner’s acknowledgements

Design & production Except where otherwise credited, The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Zero-G, Ciarán ÓGaora & Joe Coll, images are either copyright of Ealaíon: Diego Fasciati assisted by Ross Harrington the individual architects or public La Biennale di Venezia: domain. Klaus D Francke’s aerial Roberto Rosolen, Renato Quaglia Editor photograph on page 24 appears La Biennale di Venezia Servizi spa: Shane O’Toole with the permission of Dewi Lewis, Manuela Lucà Dazio, Cristiano publisher of Ireland: Aerial Frizzele, Massimiliano Bigarello Assistant Editor Photographs (1999). The aerial British Council: Emily Campbell, Emily Mark FitzGerald photograph of Tory Island on page Catherine Ince, Jeremy Till 110 is by Aeroﬁlm. Photography The Courtyard Studio: John Gleeson Print Services supplied the base image for Culture Ireland: Mary McCarthy, Impress Printing Works the illustration on page 69. Christine Sisk, Ruth Gibney The top left image on page 21 is LSE: Ricky Burdett, Sarah Ichioka Paper taken from Bellamy’s Ireland: the Tom dePaor HannoArt, McNaughton Paper wild boglands (Country House, Terry Devey 1986). Pfeiffer Studio’s image of Embassy of Ireland, Rome: Fonts milled peat harvesters in operation Susan Conlon Dolly (Underware) near Edgeworthstown, Co Longford Irish Architecture Foundation: Section (Lux Typographics) (top right, page 21) and the Dublin Antoinette O’Neill, Maeve O’Neill, Opinion cartoon, ‘Dividing up the Charlie Pike estate or the Land Commission goes Alan Mee crazy’, (bottom right, page 34) are Oikos Builders Ltd: David Coyne, taken from Atlas of the Irish Rural Graham Whelan, Zbynek Hahn, Landscape (Cork University Press, Chris White (Acrewood), Paul Gray 1997). (Mc&M Painters) RIAI: John Graby, James Pike Every effort has been made to trace Michael Ross copyright holders of images used. Tegral: Paddy Kelly, George Robinson The publisher will be happy to correct Zero-G: Karen Price, Alan Davis mistakes or omissions in future editions.